Global perspectives on digital twin smart cities: Innovations, challenges, and pathways to a sustainable urban future

IF 10.5 1区工程技术 Q1 CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY

Sustainable Cities and Society Pub Date : 2025-04-16 DOI:10.1016/j.scs.2025.106356

Maira Alvi, Hrishikesh Dutta, Roberto Minerva, Noel Crespi, Syed Mohsan Raza, Manoj Herath

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The integration of digital twin (DT) technology within smart city frameworks is becoming increasingly significant in today’s digital age. As urban areas evolve into smart ecosystems characterized by interconnected devices and data-driven management systems, digital twins provide a dynamic approach to managing these smart cities. This paper delivers an in-depth exploration of the role of digital twins in advancing smart city frameworks, surveying recent research, methodologies, and case studies that highlight their applicability in urban management, including sectors like mobility, healthcare, energy management, and environmental monitoring. Additionally, the paper delves into the foundational concepts of digital twins and digital twin smart cities, presenting a multilayered structure that emphasizes the role of each layer in creating a comprehensive urban digital twin platform. We also examine the ongoing global digital twin projects based on their development maturity, discuss the challenges of deploying these systems, and explores emerging tools such as synthetic sensing for areas with limited sensor infrastructure. By summarizing the state of the art, identifying research gaps, and discussing future directions, this review serves as a foundational reference for researchers and practitioners seeking to harness digital twin technology for more sustainable, efficient, and resilient smart cities.

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来源期刊

Sustainable Cities and Society Social Sciences-Geography, Planning and Development

CiteScore

22.00

自引率

13.70%

发文量

810

审稿时长

27 days

期刊介绍： Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS) is an international journal that focuses on fundamental and applied research to promote environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities. The journal welcomes cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary research in various areas, including: 1. Smart cities and resilient environments; 2. Alternative/clean energy sources, energy distribution, distributed energy generation, and energy demand reduction/management; 3. Monitoring and improving air quality in built environment and cities (e.g., healthy built environment and air quality management); 4. Energy efficient, low/zero carbon, and green buildings/communities; 5. Climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban environments; 6. Green infrastructure and BMPs; 7. Environmental Footprint accounting and management; 8. Urban agriculture and forestry; 9. ICT, smart grid and intelligent infrastructure; 10. Urban design/planning, regulations, legislation, certification, economics, and policy; 11. Social aspects, impacts and resiliency of cities; 12. Behavior monitoring, analysis and change within urban communities; 13. Health monitoring and improvement; 14. Nexus issues related to sustainable cities and societies; 15. Smart city governance; 16. Decision Support Systems for trade-off and uncertainty analysis for improved management of cities and society; 17. Big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications and case studies; 18. Critical infrastructure protection, including security, privacy, forensics, and reliability issues of cyber-physical systems. 19. Water footprint reduction and urban water distribution, harvesting, treatment, reuse and management; 20. Waste reduction and recycling; 21. Wastewater collection, treatment and recycling; 22. Smart, clean and healthy transportation systems and infrastructure;