Spatial Digital Twin
Road & City Digital Twinning Service Australia
The rapid growth of Cities is putting enormous pressure on city planners to use emerging spatial tools and visualisation platforms with mixed realities and online access to information. All these new mediums representing data in 2d and 3D will be required to help the community to understand the changing shape of their environment and identify the demands on the City services.
Digital twin technology is one of these big innovations, being used to design and improve the existing designs of roads and cities. This, in turn, allows town planners, engineers and construction workers to be more targeted and strategic in their development strategies. Australia is at the forefront of technology integration, so let’s understand the potential of and city digital twinning technology services in Australia.
WHAT IS DIGITAL TWIN TECHNOLOGY?
Digital Twin is a new approach that duplicates assets, infrastructure, buildings, and entire cities or products. These ‘twins’ are digital representations where both models provide respective benefits. For example, a product or asset twin can be accessed through a computer program or online, allowing the user to understand, test, and plan future designs based on the real-world data and information that the twin offers. This information helps to take the guesswork out of any design or construction or buying decision.
3D Digital Twins are to scale and can provide people with a digitally engineered product that can be used for many purposes.
RapidMap uses this technology to improve processes, decisions and the efficiency of road-based projects using a 360-degree camera collection to personalise “street views” of road corridors for Asset Managers.
Our experienced teams have worked with industry leaders on new road infrastructure and existing roads to identify issues and areas that can be improved. By engaging RapidMap, you can leverage a rich source of data about how an asset or service operates to achieve greater success and accuracy in any upcoming road-based project.
DIGITAL TWIN FOR ASSET MANAGEMENT
To truly be a Smart City, data must be freely flowing across corporate systems and people. In order to coordinate, collaboration and inform on current, past and future events in context to location – even in a multi storey environment.
The condition and status of your assets are changing all the time. Naturally, accurate and current datasets need to be mapped and shared through visualisation portals using map interfaces to communicate inherently complex statistical, or sensor data in easy to interpret snap shots to engage and answer specific questions in a timely manner.
That’s where digital twinning comes into play as a means of combining historical and current asset data to create a digitally-integrated model of your real-world structure, area, or project. Digital twins work as a means of representing your physical asset through 3D modelled digital counterparts, allowing you a fully representative overview of your asset that can be manipulated and altered over time to reflect the changing nature of that asset.
Community Improvements
Gain valuable open space usage data. Provide real-time information and updates to community members.
Maintain Public Spaces
Manage electricity consumption and safety, Real-time feeds and alerts. Manage maintenance and usage down-times.
Efficient Service Delivery
Ensure safety through movement detection. Reduce vandalism. Pre-empt issues. Set triggers to schedule tasks.
Environmental Sustainability
Monitor air quality. Use sensors to detect water quality and usage. Respond to weather changes and issue alerts.
HOW DO ROAD CORRIDORS BENEFICT FROM DIGITAL TWINNING SERVICES & TECHNOLOGY?
In terms of publicly-accessible infrastructure, road corridors are one of the most highly used, and in turn, one of the most susceptible to wear and tear. This damage to the asset can lead to safety concerns, and therefore must be monitored consistently for required maintenance tasks. For a local council or other governing body that is in charge of ensuring the optimal operation of these assets, data imaging, geospatial data and digital twins provide the ability to monitor and plan around assets in ways that would otherwise be highly time-consuming and difficult, if not outright impossible depending on the scope of the project.
Digital twins provide easy tracking across the entire lifecycle of the asset, providing you with the tools you need to track changes and analyse your road corridors for optimal performance. So, no matter what role you have in the maintenance, upkeep, or even development of road corridors and cities, digital twin providers such as RapidMap offer invaluable data tracking capabilities that are simply unavailable through other means.
Digital Twin - What We Do
It is important to keep track of roads and assets, especially if the area is prone to flooding or fires which could destroy signage and barriers. This allows you to replace these assets if they are destroyed or damaged. The speed at which motorists drive on rural roads or on interstate highways also means that the condition of these roads must be maintained. Hitting a pothole at 110kmph could be deadly. Missing road reflectors could also be dangerous at night.
Our process of recording 3D maps of the roadside isn’t only about improving road safety or data collection, it is also safer for the staff doing the work and analysing the work.
No more sending people out to manually count and measure gates, fences, trees, barriers, signs or stoplights on the side of busy roads.
Creating Smart City Digital Twin Map
It might surprise you to know that Google Maps is not the only service out there and that many State Government organisations are creating 3D digital twin city models as part of their smart city initiatives.
These models allow the user to see information such as road closures in a real-world context that can make a city map an exact twin of what is happening around them.
This is an invaluable tool for businesses who want to plug this technology into their online platforms for urban planning and engineering professionals to get a better understanding of opportunities and hindrances too.
Creating Digital Twins for Roads & Highways
Creating digital twins for roads and highways allows for efficient design for transportation routes.
RapidMap has specialised in projects such as this for many years, with the data-rich digital twins able to support decision-makers to design better real-world traffic flow to address demands, bottlenecks and plan for future construction.
Additionally, a 3D digital twin model provides a record and enables the measurement of assets such as bridges, overhead signs, street lights, fences, barriers, reflectors on the road, guard rails, street signage, trees, vegetation and any other item you would see on a road or highway.
Creating a Digital Twin for Urban Planning
As populations grow, so too does the town planning needs for a city. Digital twin technology finally links the important data that exists around population growth with urban planning and urban design.
Planners can operate with all the variables known and anticipate patterns and future needs accordingly.
Digital twin models are also used to visualise good design and share this by integrating into existing 3D cities and environments.
Digital Twin for Predictive Maintenance
Digital twin technology for predictive maintenance in Australia can save Asset Managers a lot of time, as they are not waiting to have a risk or defect increase in severity before it finally reaches the department tasked with fixing it.
Predictive twin maintenance goes beyond using a 3D map of assets but also overlays spatial objects from GIS complete with current status for comparison.
This 4D approach is unparalleled in its value to a city.
Advantages of Digital Twin Maps
The advantages of digital twin maps are extensive.
Designers, planners and construction workers are now able to align and commence a project quickly as they all have a deep understanding of the area and scope of the project.
It also offers a direct advantage to the average citizen, with issues and hazards being corrected sooner.
When embraced through online applications, people can better anticipate travel, arrivals and plan the ideal route which may even relieve traffic stress and offer a more efficient service delivery.
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RapidMap is Australia’s trusted provider of end-to-end spatial intelligence solutions for Asset Management, offering a unique combination of professional services, powerful GIS software, and advanced field data collection hardware.
Our solutions are designed to empower people with geospatial data for actionable insights about assets, infrastructure, environment, & workforce management decisions to increase productivity.
RapidMap delivers the tools and expertise you need to succeed—in the field & in the office.