The project involves a detailed three-dimensional digital reproduction of the city, with buildings, streets, greenery, technological and infrastructural networks plus many other physical assets. This digital model will be used to plan land management activities and to assess in advance the impact of administrative actions on city planning, management and service efficiency. It will also help to provide  transparency and support citizen participation around policies to achieve the carbon neutrality goals that Parma has set for 2030.

The uses of the Digital Twin

The Parma Digital Twin is an innovative model that will be used for the prior assessment of the impact of administrative actions on urban planning, service efficiency and active citizen participation.

There are many practical applications of the digital twin model. Firstly, it makes it possible to simplify the verification and precision surveying activities carried out by municipal services. In most cases this can avoid having to physically go to the site for surveys, resulting in considerable process efficiencies.

Secondly, the Digital Twin makes it possible to digitally catalogue and manage objects or to add individual elements to the surveyed model following operations carried out, by technical staff, directly from the office: for example, storm drains, advertising installations, public lighting, street signs and street furniture.

Another potential application regards the high-precision digital road model, which is particularly useful for monitoring, simulating, and forecasting the consequences of weather and flood events, enabling the development of a preventive response at the most critical points.

The applications of the Digital Twin in the field of public green spaces include monitoring the health of the tree stock and managing maintenance (pruning and new planting, for example). The Digital Twin also makes it possible, through what can be called the “digital identity card” of the tree, to identify trees at risk of instability, depending on wind speed and state of health.

This is a particularly important function for municipal services because it allows them to intervene in a timely manner. Other information, such as carbon dioxide reduction as a function of vegetative state, will be useful for monitoring and informing planning policies to adapt to, and combat climate change.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning algorithms are also being explored for automated or semi-automated updates to the asset register, such as recognition and classification of street lighting poles, storm drains, vertical signs and advertising installations.