Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESEThe digitalization of urban, suburban and rural areas is a crucial step towards creating smart, efficient, and sustainable cities and regions. Urban Digital Twins offer an innovative solution for visualizing and analyzing municipal data in real time and making fact-based decisions. Digital Twins can be used to simulate and better understand decision-making options, making them comprehensible even to non-experts. As a result, Urban Digital Twins offer the opportunity to utilize resources more efficiently, improve citizen participation and promote sustainable development.
Urban Digital Twin
Conception and implementation of an Urban Digital Twin
The following procedure describes a holistic process from the idea to the rollout of the Urban Digital Twin. We also support you with partial services from this process and can respond flexibly to your individual requirements.
Phase 1: Analysis and conception
Requirements analysis
- Identification of relevant stakeholders
- Implementation of workshops to elicit the technical requirements and needs of relevant stakeholders
- Identification of goals and use cases for the Digital Twin (e.g., traffic management, environmental monitoring, climate impact adaptation, municipal heat planning)
- Derivation of technical requirements for relevant use cases
Feasibility study
- Review of technological and economic feasibility
- Evaluation of existing technical solutions
- Risk analysis and assessment of data protection and security requirements
Concept development
- Development of a concept for the implementation of the Digital Twin, based on an existing or to-be-created data infrastructure
- Definition of measurable success criteria
- Creation of an implementation plan with milestones and time frame
Phase 2: Planning and design
Data integration and management
- Determination of required data and its quality characteristics
- Planning of data integration from existing data infrastructure
Technical infrastructure
- Design of the technical infrastructure, including cloud computing platforms, network infrastructure and security protocols
- Selection of suitable technologies
User interface and interactivity
- Design of user interfaces for different user groups (e.g. specialist departments, urban society, researchers)
- Definition of design guidelines for the complete Digital Twin
Phase 3 (optional): Support during the tendering process
Creation of specifications
- Consolidation of the requirements into a specification
- Creation of an evaluation matrix
- Support with the preparation of the tender documents
Accompanying the tender
- Answering technical questions from bidders
- Support during bidder meetings
Evaluation of tenders
- Review of bids
- Evaluation of bids as a basis for decision-making
Phase 4: Implementation and testing
Prototype development and piloting
- Creation of prototypes of specific application scenarios to improve communication with user groups
- Realization of pilot projects to validate the concept and collect user feedback
- Development of interactive dashboards and visualizations
Implementation support
- Technical and professional support during the rollout of the Digital Twin
- Training and support for selected user groups
Monitoring and evaluation
- Monitoring and analysis of key performance indicators
- Continuous assessment and fine-tuning based on collected data and user feedback