Major cities in Asia, North America and Europe are creating digital twins in their transition to smart cities. And there is no turning back.
Digital twins (DT) are virtual replicas of physical assets, processes or systems that allow the analysis of millions of data points they generate, the creation of simulations of different scenarios and even the manipulation of them in real time as if they were mere interfaces. We are talking about everything from intelligent traffic regulation systems to aerospace simulators or robotic applications in operating rooms.
DGs in smart cities are being used, above all, to monitor traffic and public infrastructure, improve disaster prevention and mitigation, and reinforce energy efficiency and good management of resources, waste and CO2 emissions.
Of course, every city is different, and its priorities are also reflected in its digital twins. For Los Angeles, for example, it is crucial that its digital twin helps it better manage mobility. And this was almost predictable: Los Angeles is one of the ten cities with the worst traffic in the world, according to the INRIX ranking, to the point that residents spend almost 90 hours a year trying to get from one place to another.
According to a recent study by a team of researchers led by Evanthia Faliagka, Los Angeles uses a network of sensors, cameras and connected devices throughout the city’s transportation infrastructure to collect real-time data on traffic conditions.
This data, experts say, is processed to optimize the duration of traffic light signals, manage changes in lane directions and dynamically adjust the flow of vehicles.
As a result, they explain, the city has seen reduced congestion, improved traffic flow and shorter travel times for commuters. According to INRIX’s latest analysis, the time residents spend in transit has been reduced by 6% since 2022.
In addition, over the next three years, the city council is expected to implement the recommendations of its Traffic Reduction Study, which provides for rates to reduce congestion, a reorganization of public transport and new aid for people on low incomes.
To start with, Los Angeles has already integrated digital solutions into its public transportation system, such as real-time traffic monitoring, electronic fare payment systems, and mobile applications for intermodal trip planning.
The Californian megacity has also implemented, according to Evanthia Faliagka, smart parking systems that leverage sensors and mobile apps to provide real-time information on parking availability and guide drivers to empty parking spaces.
The City of Los Angeles is updating its digital twin with real-time or big data to make decisions about transportation planning and infrastructure investments. By analyzing traffic patterns, demand trends, and user preferences, officials and policymakers can identify areas for improvement, optimize transportation networks, and allocate resources more effectively.
Unlike in Los Angeles, in Singapore the challenge is not so much traffic as the overwhelming lack of space, something that determines the management and construction of new buildings and infrastructure, the provision of green spaces and the design of emergency services and disaster planning based on different evacuation and crowd dispersal scenarios.
According to the World Bank, Singapore’s population has grown by almost 20% over the past 15 years, from five to six million people. And that continued expansion means that even underground space is becoming increasingly scarce, which is why they have also begun developing a digital twin of the underground system.
Singapore has moved underground everything that couldn’t fit on the surface. And that means, according to an analysis by Infrastructure Global, that they need to know precisely the risk of damaging an underground structure during work in a given area and to minimize the duration and impact of the work on other services. The authorities also hope to use the underground digital twin to identify areas of poor telephone coverage and improve the placement of cables and antennas.
Singapore has become a global benchmark to the point that Dubai, for example, has set out to follow in its footsteps. That is why the Emirate’s authorities hope to leverage its digital twin to improve urban management, infrastructure planning and emergency responses.
The success of the initiative, according to a recent analysis by academic researcher Silvia Mazzetto, is due, above all, to an approach that integrates the main aspects of urban governance into the digital twin.
It is therefore not surprising that they are testing predictive models and analysis of real estate assets, the transport system and sustainability actions. They are also trying to incorporate a descriptive analysis of the socioeconomic data of the Emirate’s communities and the spaces they occupy, something that will require them, as Mazzetto also points out, to take extreme cybersecurity measures.
The Emirate’s authorities want, like Singapore, their live dashboards, powered by artificial intelligence and fed by data collected in real time, to present simulations of different scenarios and allow them to choose the most efficient in terms of transport, energy consumption, sustainability and impact on the quality of life of their inhabitants.
It is incredible that Dubai has come so far in just three years. In 2022, it deployed everything needed to create an accurate digital twin (DT) of the Emirate, including landmarks and all major service infrastructure in three dimensions.
At that time, they also began to design a GD for the metro network, later turning it into one of the 24 innovative initiatives of their Digital Strategy 2023-2030, which include areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, robotics and the metaverse.
In 2023, Dubai launched the region’s first metaverse where users (residents, institutions and businesses) can explore the Emirate through its digital twin and interact with three-dimensional models. The digital twin and the metaverse are also benefiting from advances associated with augmented reality and lidar devices, which allow distances to be measured using laser beams.
However, although Dubai is exceptional in many ways, when it comes to GDs it is not only accompanied by major competitors such as Singapore or Los Angeles, but also by an overwhelming spread of the use of digital twins which, according to a recent academic study, already extends to Barcelona, Helsinki, Dublin, Boston, Rotterdam, Zurich, Seoul, Jaipur, and Amravati.
The phenomenon is becoming more and more diverse, something that is demonstrated not only by the different functions that cities give to GDs, but also by the very nature of the projects. For example, in Shanghai they have preferred to create small digital twins of selected infrastructures and areas and expand them from there, while in Portugal they have dared to use this technology to design and build an entire city for more than 200,000 inhabitants almost from scratch near Porto.
And so, thanks to the recent convergence of the Internet of Things, enhanced cloud data storage and analysis capabilities, new 5G networks and generative artificial intelligence, digital twins are no longer a futuristic fiction.
And this is just the beginning. The market value of this technology, both in and outside the urban environment (in sectors such as healthcare, aerospace, etc.) could rise from $18 billion to $260 billion in less than a decade, according to Fortune Business Insights.
These are dizzying figures that herald a transformation of colossal dimensions that was the focus of great hype a decade ago, but which, in its most recent developments, has managed to fly under the media’s radar. Perhaps, as Nietzsche wrote, great events sometimes come on doves’ feet.
