#connectedinEurope: Utrecht and Munich meet to exchange on development of urban Digital Twins

One of the specialties in the Netherlands is that there is an existing base platform for 3D-visualizations in the whole country – Netherlands3D – upon which cities and other users can (experimentally) set up their models. The meeting started of with the topic of cloud infrastructures which on a European level warrants compliance with the most recent NIS-2-directive. Representatives of other Dutch cities joined online to explain against this background the joint development of a technical framework architecture for the cloud infrastructure of Netherlands3D. Their uniformity offers advantages in terms of practicability, costs and scaling. 

On the German side, the development of cloud infrastructures is somewhat more complex due to differing assessments of the extent to which digital sovereignty is affected by the use of proprietary providers. 

In their tandem activities, both cities are jointly testing the extent to which interaction and interoperability between their systems is possible at city level despite these differences. They are thus demonstrating that paradigmatic debates need by no means block cooperation at the operational level.

As a further prerequisite for data modeling in digital twins, the colleagues from Utrecht explained the properties of the Pdok Data Base. The counterpart to this is the Geoportal in Germany, which aggregates geodata from the municipal and state level in a more decentralized manner. In Germany, there is no standardized identification management down to the building level, as is the case in the Netherlands. 

A joint "virtual tour" through the Digital Twin in Utrecht offered subsequently the opportunity to reflect together on the ethical dimensions and risks of the (public) presentation of certain data, e.g. underground pipe systems. In addition, both cities presented the latest use cases from their Digital Twins. This included, among others, the depiction of tree root volumes to check for possible collisions with civil engineering projects, or microclimate simulations to show vulnerable groups safer walking routes in the event of a heat alarm. 

Having gone together through such inspiring debates and illustrative examples, the cities could agree swiftly on their next steps as a #connectedinEurope tandem. 

Further Links and Material: