Digital Twinning for Intelligent Cities: More than Marketing Buzz — a Catalyzing North Star for Efforts to Leverage Integrated Systems in Counties, Cities and Towns
Ok, yes, “digital twin” is a marketing buzzword. But as marketing buzzwords go, digital twin seems to be accomplishing something quite extraordinary. Under the banner of the digital twin moniker, leaders at cities, airports, universities and an array of community anchor institutions are tackling complex system integration challenges and trumpeting the beneficial impact of successful integrations in terms of the new services and applications for key stakeholders. What is the extraordinary feat, you might ask? Somehow — describing the far-from-glamourous work of system integration as creating or enhancing a digital twin makes back-office software integrations appear like impactful improvements deployed by change agents!
In this post, I explore digital twining for cities. Drawing on a few examples of city-centric digital twin initiatives, I showcase how cities are investing in digital twin initiatives to enhance the livability of their communities, and I identify the critical components of a digital twin for cities, including effective public-private partnerships and technology design processes that have an enterprise-scope rather than a project-scope. In the end, I make the case that forward-looking city leaders are using digital twin initiatives as a catalyzing north star for the design and implementation of a 21st Century system-of-systems that can deliver for community residents, businesses and government employees alike.
What is a City-Centered Digital Twin?
Probably best to start with a definition of “digital twin.” While there are several viable definitions, for this post, we will use Georgia Tech Professor John Taylor’s definition of a digital twin as “an intelligent, adaptive system that pairs virtual and physical worlds” and city-centered digital twin as “a pairing between real community assets and their digital counterparts.” According the Professor Taylor’s definition, meaningful digital twin solutions generate data-driven feedback loops created by interactions between 1) systems centered-on humans, 2) physical infrastructure systems, and 3) technology systems (devices, sensors, and data analytics infrastructure).
Examples help illustrate how digital twin initiatives leverage system integrations, connectivity solutions and data analytics to create feedback loops that enhance the livability of communities. Here are three examples of municipal-led digital twin efforts:
· City of Baton Rouge, LA — Baton Rouge’s digital twin initiative centers on an integration between the city’s GIS and 311 systems. The integration of the systems enabled city leaders to develop, implement and monitor an effort to redress blighted properties in Baton Rouge. Using the power of location data, city leaders were able to analyze data by council district and build a consensus position between the City Council and Mayor’s office. Based on the success of this initiative, Baton Rouge has started integrations to allow city leaders to visualize and localize traffic incident data and crime data.
· City of Coral Gables, FL — Economic development is a key focus of Coral Gable’s digital twin initiative. Via an effort to consolidate and visualize data from the city’s 14 municipal departments, Coral Gables’ publicly accessible digital twin offers live data on traffic, parking availability and asset management. Available data including pedestrian counts and bus service routes, is made available to help small business owners and developers make decisions about investments in Coral Gables.
· City of Columbus, GA — Enhancing river safety is a central component of Columbus’s digital twin effort. On average, Columbus’s emergency response (EMS) receives 18 calls a year to rescue a resident/visitor who is in or near the Chattahoochee River. In recent years, Columbus has experience 5–6 fatalities a year because of flash floods and unexpected swift water. To provide actionable information for Columbus EMS, the city and its technology partners mounted cameras to a bridge crossing the river and connecting the cameras to existing fiber optic infrastructure. The collected video data is analyzed by software that, via an integration with an EMS system, can send alerts to EMS personnel based on an algorithm-based assessment of the threat of an incident due to flooding or swift water.
A key success factor for all three digital twin initiatives described above is collaboration. Collaboration between municipal leaders across different municipal departments and functions, and collaboration between the city and their technology and connectivity partners is foundational to an effective digital twin initiative. Another project success factor relates to integrations. Well-designed and well-implemented integrations between systems (new and existing) is the engine of an adaptive system. Finally, a successful digital twin must include a clear objective about how the digital twin will improve community livability.
Best Practices for Local Government Leaders Curious about Digital Twinning
As local government leaders consider investing time and money in digital twin initiatives, there are three best practices that they should keep in mind.
· Successful digital twin initiatives are built on a technology stack that is designed for an enterprise. The literature on digital twin initiatives is replete with warnings that effective digital twin initiatives require extensible, adaptive and/or flexible technology solutions. Integrations should be delivered by open technologies, data standards and data models should be well-documented, database solutions should be robust enough to support both a city’s current and future objectives.
· Effective Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) with connectivity partners are key to successful city-centric digital twin initiatives. Many city-centric digital twin initiatives will involve acquiring, processing and analyzing data so that the digital twin can provide valuable input into a decision, policy or process. Telecommunications firms may have useful assets already serving the municipality (fiber, Wi-Fi or cellular wireless networks, eg) and they may also have IoT solution teams that can help cities select and implement well-suited data collection and analysis technologies. An effective PPP with technology partners that have expertise collecting, processing and analyzing data is of great value to a municipality pursuing a digital twin initiative.
· Digital Twins solutions should power easy-to-recognize benefits for key stakeholders. Digital twin solutions can be easily dismissed as little more than repurposed building design and simulation software (e.g., BIM software) enabling fancy “fly throughs.” Local governments that are leading the way on digital twins are designing and implementing systems to power data-enriched visual/spatial tools advancing specific goals. Even though an overall goal of initiative might be an all-encompassing system of systems, it is a best practice that effective digital twin solutions will support easily defined benefits for the community.
Digital Twinning for Intelligent Cities — Concluding Thoughts
For champions of local government efforts to leverage available technology to deliver new services and applications to residents, city-centric digital twin initiatives are very exciting. Too often, so-called “Smart City” efforts can seem like one-off project separate from the real work of a city, county or town. In communities including Baton Rouge (LA), Columbus (GA) and Coral Gables (FL), city leaders are using digital twin initiatives as a catalyzing north star for the design and implementation of an integrated system-of-systems that can deliver for community residents, businesses and government employees alike. In effect, a city’s digital twin effort can be the organizing principle around which city leaders start to put key puzzle pieces together. As the puzzle comes together, City-centric digital twin initiatives will help make city management more efficient and power meaningful local government improvements in areas including planning/permitting, emergency preparedness, disaster recovery, and energy efficiency.
About this Medium Site
On this Medium site, I explore an array of topics related to the transformative power of smart and connected communities. A central question for this observer of the so-called smart community movement: how will municipalities, real estate developers, universities and other leading organizations develop, deploy and support smart and connected community projects at scale?
I welcome feedback and comments from readers.
