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Urban Digital Twin - Living-in.EU

This group aims to build a community of like-minded cities, working on urban digital twins. The group will discuss the concept, bring forward concrete use cases from around the EU and then explore why cities would be interested in using urban digital twins. Urban digital twins are a virtual representation of a city's physical assets, using data, data analytics and machine learning to help stimulation models that can be updated and changed (real-time) as their physical equivalents change. Some may consider a digital twin only describing reality (and the history of it), while it is the additional applications that bring the real intelligence and help create the common picture of reality that is the value-added of an urban digital twin. In terms of rationale, they can bring cost efficiencies, operational efficiencies, better crisis management, more openness and better informed decision-making, more participatory governance or better urban planning.

The solution explained

An urban digital should ideally provide the following minimum five capabilities:

  1. Connected
  2. Integrated
  3. Visualise
  4. Analysis
  5. Secure

Although there are a number of helpful enablers that can be used for urban digital twins in other cities, such as the Minimum Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs), interoperable urban digital platforms, the forthcoming data ecosystem for climate-neutral and smart communities and other initiatives such as the work to establish an Interoperability Framework for smart cities and communities.

There are a number of challenges related to governance, ecosystem data management (data availability and sharing, data governance and stewardship, shared data models and standards), cybersecurity and privacy, ethics, interoperability and skills. The goal of the community is to discuss these challenges and find common ground to resolve them. It is our  goal to help the concept of European urban digital twins move forward and create the ground for enabling many EU cities to implement their own digital twin, while at the same time increase the twins’ level of maturity and create industry standards that ensure European interoperability.

Source: Urban Digital Twin - Living-in.EU

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