Managing Urban Digital Twins With an Extended Catalog Service

Abstract

Abstract. A city is a complex system and involves many stakeholders with different interests and information about the physical city objects. Information integration from distributed sources is therefore a common challenge in many Smart City projects, as well as in projects for setting up Urban Digital Twins (UDT). In the context of distributed data infrastructures, catalog systems provide a significant contribution to solving the data integration challenge. However, neither existing catalogs for managing urban data nor catalogs used in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) are tailored for managing UDTs. In response to this gap, our research focuses on the development of an extended catalog service including a metadata model specifically designed to manage distributed UDTs. The requirements for the metadata model and the functionality of the catalog were obtained from several smart city projects. As a proof of concept, the paper shows how the catalog implemented on the basis of the CKAN software package is used for managing the UDT of an urban redevelopment project in the city of Munich, Germany.

How to Approach Technical Challenges in the development of Urban Digital Twins in Smart Cities. Case Study: Tallinn, Estonia

“…This can support planning processes and lead to more livable and democratic cities, as well as strengthen the implementation of measures (Dembski et al, 2019). However, the processes of collecting, integrating, and representing heterogeneous urban data in UDTs are challenging (Knezevic et al, 2022). Besides, making inappropriate strategies for the development of UDTs due to the lack of initiators' knowledge and experience may lead to severe consequences in the implementation, utilization, and maintenance of UDTs.…”

“…This research aims at building a bridge between scientific and practical approaches to identify and address the challenges of UDT development with the case study of the City of Tallinn, Estonia. To avoid unwanted consequences, it is critical to establish sophisticated processes in collecting, integrating, and representing heterogeneous data in UDTs such as catalog systems that contribute to overcoming the data integration challenge (Knezevic et al, 2022). Another essential factor is how to develop and implement data into a UDT that can address complex urban challenges in near real-time.…”