New urban use cases boost adoption of digital twin tech

City digital twin deployments are projected to exceed 500 by 2025, according to the Smart Cities and Smart Spaces quarterly update report from ABI Research.

Widespread deployment of digital twins as multipurpose urban decision and management tools is imminent, largely driven by COVID-19 requirements in terms of achieving increased resilience levels and optimised asset and demand-response resource management, according to the research.

Dominique Bonte, Vice President End Markets at ABI Research, notes that real-time 3D models of a city’s built environment enable scenario analysis through the simulation of the potential impact of natural disasters, adopt generative design principles for new city developments, and optimise energy savings and solar capacity.

Following the deployment of urban digital twins by vendors like Dassault Systèmes in Singapore, feature sets are rapidly expanding to enable a wider range of applications. Urban digital twins can be used for infrastructure coverage planning (for 5G, light poles and Wi-Fi), indoor airflow simulation (to minimise the spread of COVID-19), and resilience and emergency response (for real-time view on city assets and resources).

Urban digital twins can also be used for green infrastructure management, vehicle electrification and smart mobility deployments, and to enable renewable energy maximisation and recycling optimisation. Bonte noted that the digital twin ecosystem is growing quickly, with more suppliers announcing deployments in more cities.

“Vendors like Dassault Systèmes and Engie subsidiary Siradel are paving the way for extending urban digital twins to marketplaces and opening access to key metrics and dashboards to the citizens themselves, increasing their overall involvement and helping gain approval of city government decisions and policies,” said Bonte.

Cityzenith donated its SmartWorldPro2 digital twin platform to selected cities to help them become carbon neutral as part of the global ‘Clean Cities – Clean Future’ campaign. Bentley Systems also partnered with Microsoft to integrate Azure IoT Digital Twins and Azure Maps into its iTwins platform.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/WrightStudio