Urban Digital Twins: Decision-Making Models for Transportation Network Simulation

Abstract

Digital twin technology has been applied in multiple fields recently by providing modelling platform, information of built environment, or real-time data. It was created to improve generation process and efficiency of industrial products at first. Today, digital twins start to create scenarios of smart cities with information technology and computing. This paper explores the digital twin implementation in design progress of transportation network. A case study of Wellington Digital Twin has been analyzed. This public and accessible model allows for communities and neighborhoods’ participation in transportation network design progress with components to tag and report comments in urban areas. It is found that compared with conventional transportation simulation, the digital twins have the characteristics of accurate, implemented, and digitalized. Meanwhile, digital twins have the capability to present the exact counterpart of physical world and predict how it perform in the future. This research also argues that digital twins are not a panacea although they can assist interactive transportation network simulation to a certain extent.