Bottom-Up Approach for Creating an Urban Digital Twin Platform and Use Cases

Abstract

Smart city initiatives have been a driving force for city-level dataset collection and the development of data-driven applications that benefit effective city management. There is a need to demonstrate use cases for effective city management using the available dataset. Urban Digital Twin (UDT) is a 3D city model that can integrate multi-disciplines and improve systems operability on a digital platform. However, UDTs are developed within organisations, and there is only limited availability of authoritative open 3D datasets to explore the potential of UDT concepts. This paper reports a methodology for creating a UDT platform for visualising and querying city energy data. We demonstrate a bottom-up approach to constructing an integrated 3D city dataset and create a query system for rapid access and navigation of the 3D city dataset through a visualisation platform using Cesium Ion. Various use cases are explored based on the dataset, such as building material stock management, energy demand simulation, electric vehicles (EV) demand and flexibility, and estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These use cases can help decision-makers and stakeholders involved in city planning and management. Furthermore, it provides a guideline for developers willing to create UDT applications for smart city initiatives.