Rising demand for smart urban management and citizen-centric lifestyles is a catalyst for the rapid growth of smart cities – a market that is expected to grow to $873.7 billion by 2026.

A smart city is a community that uses digital twins to continuously collect historical and real-time data from sensors and drones. These provide information about the performance of utilities, mobility patterns, and infrastructure within the environment.

Digital twins enable cities to:

  • Gain a deeper understanding of the effects design and planning decisions will have on communities
  • Get real-time insights about the performance of existing municipal services like fire, emergency, and wastewater management
  • Better equip citizens for unforeseen events such as natural disasters

Many cities and large-scale infrastructure sites already see the benefits of this technology, and adoption is quickly growing. It is estimated that more than 500 cities worldwide will have implemented a digital twin by 2025.

Read on to learn more about cities that have already deployed digital twins, and discover how this technology is evolving both operations and the way citizens work and live.

Punggol Digital District, Singapore

JTC

Key purposes: Operational efficiency, sustainability, building operations
Used by: Citizens, government entities, investors

JTC Corporation is Singapore’s leading government agency responsible for master planning, building, and operating all of the country’s industrial land.

The company is behind renowned industrial estates such as Jurong Island and Seletar Aerospace Park. They are continuing to reshape the country’s business landscape and urban environment with their latest development, the Punggol Digital District.

The Punggol Digital District is Singapore’s first fully smart and sustainable district, supported by JTC’s proprietary digital infrastructure, the Open Digital Platform (ODP).

JTC’s ODP collects data from a range of sensors, capturing metrics like temperature, weather conditions, power consumption, and building occupancy. Using Unity’s real-time 3D digital twin technology, the ODP seamlessly integrates and monitors this data, driving operational efficiency and helping to enhance Singapore’s sustainability initiatives.

Results
Gathering data from sensors and diverse systems, JTC’s ODP can accurately predict energy demand and supply. This capability has already undergone testing in JTC’s headquarters, resulting in projected energy savings of 30% for the building’s cooling systems.

Discover how JTC used Unity’s real-time 3D technology to build a digital twin of Singapore’s Punggol Digital District.

Shanghai, China

Shanghai Metro

Key purposes: Operations management, maintenance, design review
Used by: Citizens and government entities

Shanghai Boke Information Technology, established through collaborative funding from multiple infrastructure and transportation institutions in Shanghai, is a company that’s devoted to the new digital urban construction market.

Leveraging industry insights and technological capabilities, Shanghai Boke Information Technology used Unity’s digital twin solutions to create a feature-rich operational twin for the Shanghai Metro Line 17. This is the first transit line in Shanghai to use comprehensive monitoring for equipment, stations, and sections.

After converting BIM data of the transit line and importing it into Unity, Shanghai Boke Information Technology was able to create a digital twin that provides true-to-life, interactive 3D visualization.

Results
The digital twin enabled Shanghai Metro to unlock several operational efficiencies, including automatic ticket gate status monitoring, real-time alarm insights, and more.

"During the lifecycle of a project, we can use Unity’s digital twin technology to build a visualized interaction bridge that combines virtual with reality for operations personnel. It combines full, accurate, and comprehensive data with lifelike visuals to truly build a real-time, interactable sensory experience, providing a powerful means of realizing the intelligent construction, delivery, and operations for ‘new urban construction."

— Yao Yejun, Technical Director of the R&D Center, Shanghai Boke Information Technology

Digital twin of Shanghai Metro Line 17

Orlando, USA

Orlando Economic Partnership

Key purposes: Economic development, operational efficiency, sustainability
Used by: Investors, government entities, utility companies

Setting a new standard for the future of urban planning, the Orlando Economic Partnership (OEP) harnessed Unity to build one of the world’s most comprehensive and immersive digital twins of an entire region. OEP’s digital twin brings plenty of data together, including geospatial, building, occupational, and census information, with the intent of driving economic investment in the city of Orlando.

"The [digital twin] will change the way we do business, and the way businesses immerse themselves in all Orlando has to offer."

— Name Surname, Title, Company

Results
Prospective companies looking to set up shop in Orlando can bypass time-consuming site visits and get all of Orlando’s pertinent details in less than 48 hours, including land, real estate, and professional talent insights.

In addition, utility companies and city planners can now share proposed infrastructure improvements and ideas more conveniently with regulators and investors by using an immersive, interactive experience.

OEP’s 800 square mile digital twin of Orlando displayed at the digital marketing center in the company’s new headquarters

Paris, France

Vectuel

Key purposes: Design and review collaboration, construction, building operations
Used by: Municipal government and architects

Vectuel, a French company providing visualization solutions, has recreated the greater Paris metropolitan area in real-time 3D using Unity.

They created the 1,000 km2 digital twin of Paris with geographic information system (GIS) and building information modeling (BIM) data, collected through terra photography – photographs of the territory taken from a plane – as well as data provided by the Institut national de l’information géographique et forestière (National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information) in France.

This data was prepared and imported into Unity using Pixyz Plugin in combination with Vectuel’s own software, Virtual City.

Results
City officials and architects were already working with Vectuel to design, review, and construct buildings more efficiently. However, using digital replicas of the city’s infrastructure improved visualization and enhanced collaboration. This enabled better decision-making on architectural styles, colors, floor plans, and equipment placement – inevitably reducing downtime, construction time, errors, and overall project costs.

"[Using Unity] allowed us to publish [the digital twin] to multiple devices, including the web.This was very important to us because our customers and the public need to be able to easily access the [digital twin] from any location. Unity’s products have really helped this process become easier."

— Grégory Morlet, CEO, Vectuel

Vectuel’s 1,000 km2 digital twin of the greater Paris metropolitan area

Get your city ready for the future

Discover how Unity Industry’s creation tools and enterprise-level support can help you transform industrial data into interactive, immersive digital twins.

Buy nowLearn more
Please enable Javascript in your browser in order to continue.