A MUNICIPAL DIGITAL TWIN SIMULATOR FOR DRONE-ASSISTED EMERGENCY ACCESS IN RURAL TERRITORIES

Public services planned around averages can conceal structurally underserved residents in dispersed rural territories. This study develops a municipal digital twin simulator for testing drone-assisted emergency access in a Spanish municipality of nineteen settlements covering 406.71 km². The study first characterizes existing road-based emergency access and identifies four peripheral settlements, comprising 46 residents, with disproportionately long response times. The resulting equity indicators make this territorial discontinuity visible and provide a criterion for evaluating intervention scenarios. The simulator integrates the territorial model, emergency resources, deterministic allocation logic, three-dimensional visualization, replayable virtual scenarios and an inspectable decision account. Its prototype was validated in collaboration with the municipal authority through scenario-based sessions using the real territorial and operational context. Municipal feedback was incorporated into successive iterations, and the resulting system was assessed for functional behavior, interpretability and practical usefulness to non-technical decision makers. The prototype therefore represents a pilot-validated simulation environment for municipal planning and is consistent with the TRL5 criterion of a validated prototype in a real-world context. The study shows how digital-twin simulation can support equitable, transparent and citizen-centered emergency planning before physical deployment of drone services.