State-of-the-Art of the Urban Digital Twin Ecosystem in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has a long tradition of assessing its natural and built environment and monitoring changes through the use of diverse and reliable databases. Several Dutch governmental bodies have been utilizing urban digital twin (UDT) as a tool to consolidate and analyze existing spatial and non-spatial datasets. Among other reasons, the Omgevingswet, the new Dutch environmental code expected to take effect in 2022, has motivated government bodies and companies to advance with their digital twin initiatives. According to Geonovum (2021), a digital twin is a dynamic system where objects and processes from the environment are established by data, models and visualizations, supporting simulations and evidence-based decision-making.

In this context, this paper aims to assess the existing Urban Digital Twin initiatives in the Netherlands undertaken by both the public and the private sector in order to draw insights about the challenges, opportunities and the use of digital twins within the country. The research relied on publicly available information on the Internet and interviews with stakeholders in the Urban Digital Twin ecosystem. The method for this research follows four steps: 1) finding Urban Digital Twin initiatives via searching organizational websites; 2) developing a Urban Digital Twin assessment template based on academic and practical literature; 3) identifying UDT project leaders and conducting interviews for data collection; 4) consolidating the collected qualitative data from the interviews and drawing conclusions.

From May to September 2021, 10 interviews were undertaken with key project leaders in their respective organizations. Among 40% of interviewees played mainly a technical role in the project, while 60% had a mainly managerial position. All of the interviewees had sufficient knowledge of both managerial and technical aspects of the projects they were involved in. The main findings are that most urbn digital twins are already operational, but still being improved and extended. The typical budget over 2 years ranged from €400.000 to €600.000 to reach the current development stage and most urban digital twins had funding secured for the next few years. It was concluded that the Netherlands has a vibrant ecosystem of Urban Digital Twins with government, suppliers and universities engaged in the development of new solutions, but still, some challenges remain like the difficulty of including citizens in the design and operation phases.