Australia’s state of New South Wales (NSW) is investing A$40m (c.£21.1m) in a digital twin to improve urban planning and development.
The ‘twin’ takes various data sources including spatial, natural resources, and planning, and integrates it with real time sensor feeds.
It is hoped that this virtual model will provide improved insights for planners, designers, and decision makers across industry and government.
NSW’s digital twin currently hosts virtual representations of eight high-growth council areas, and will be rolled out state-wide over the next two years.
‘Seeing into the future’
Victor Dominello, NSW’s minister for digital and customer service, said: “This initiative is an evolutionary leap when it came to shaping communities and boosting productivity – allowing residents, developers and planners to see into the future.
“This digital architecture makes it possible to visualise a development digitally before it is physically built, making it easier to plan and predict outcomes of infrastructure projects, right down to viewing how shadows fall, or how much traffic is in an area.”
“By boosting access to the spatial digital twin through smart phones and tablets, the NSW government is making it easier for customers to collaborate and gain planning information about their streets, neighbourhoods, and communities.
“This digital advancement delivers on the NSW government’s commitment to make data more accessible for the people of NSW.”
NSW’s digital twin initiative is part of the Live.NSW programme through which a new customer platform will be developed to enable people to search for information based on their needs and places of interest.
For example, the platform would bring information together to inform people about local schools or a proposed hospital, creating a snapshot of what exists and what is planned.
The NSW government has allocated A$2.1bn across four years to invest in digital transformation projects through the Digital Restart Fund, which supports technology solutions that create efficiencies in delivering citizen services.
The Live.NSW programme will be launched next year.
Image credit: jamesteohart/Shutterstock
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