Digital twins for intelligent cities: the case study of Matera
Abstract The digital twin (DT) paradigm provides a purpose-built digital representation of a physical system. DTs are often composed by several interconnected models, which need to be specifically tailored to fit the DT purposes. The objective of this work is the development of an urban digital twin (UDT) for the city of Matera, following urban intelligence (UI) paradigm. The latter leverages the multi-disciplinary integration and optimization of the city systems and subsystems to develop purpose-driven DTs and support the decision-making process. The UDT is intended to support governance, stakeholders, and citizens, integrating morphological data for the city representation, reliable simulation tools and data-driven methods for the city state prediction (e.g., traffic, solar irradiation), optimization algorithms for planning and emergency response, sensors for vehicle and pedestrian traffic volumes and environmental monitoring (e.g., pollutant distributions), and a participatory data collection process from the citizens. A Data Lake is used to make available to the UDT modules the data produced by the morphological representation, simulations/data-driven methods, sensors, and the participatory data. The Data Lake provides a standardized approach for the aggregation and extraction of information. Finally, an Urban Sensing Engine supports the decision-making process with artificial intelligence forms of reasoning, to effectively combine the information produced by the UDT components.
Authors
- Simone Pittaluga (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7416-3484)
- Daniela Cabiddu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5797-4189)
- Emanuele Damiano
- Paolo Ventura (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6923-3799)
- Amedeo Cesta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0703-9122)
- Emilio F. Campana (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8234-0089)
- Marialucia Camardelli
- Giordana Castelli
- Lucanos Marsilio Strambini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4903-4696)
- Stefano Silvestri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9890-8409)
- Mario Ciampi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7286-6212)
- Matteo Diez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6113-7893)
- Mario Sicuranza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8144-7506)
- Gabriella Tognola (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2433-449X)
- Michela Mortara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1074-1024)
- Riccardo De Benedictis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2344-4088)
- Riccardo Pellegrini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4953-3038)
- Andreas Scalas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8254-0099)
- Michela Spagnuolo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5682-6990)
- Giuseppe Stecca (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5876-4538)
- Roberto Malvezzi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4229-1530)
- Giovanni Felici (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0544-5407)
- Diego Maria Pinto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2609-1070)
- Ida Giulia Presta
Institutions
- Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (IT)
- AREA Science Park (IT)
- Institute of Electronics, Computer and Telecommunication Engineering (IT)
- National Research Council (RO)
- Institute of Marine Engineering (IT)
- Italian Resuscitation Council (IT)
- National Research Council (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Reliable Intelligent Environments
- Published
- 2025-02-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s40860-025-00245-3
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Smart Cities and Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.81
Funders
- Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico