An Urban Digital Twin Framework for Reference and Planning

Urban management systems evolve from merely overseeing urban growth to comprehending interactions among cities' natural, physical, cyber, and social systems. Urban digital twins leverage emerging technologies and serve as platforms to support city transitions. However, a generic urban digital twin framework with essential building blocks leading to a sustainable urban digital transformation is lacking, as most urban digital twin implementations focus on specific application areas and usages. In addition, as urban digital twins are rather new developments, it is important to clarify their concept, definition, and characteristics, including their joint components and functions. This paper presents findings from a domain analysis based on a systematic literature review on urban digital twins, including investigating the concept, definition, and characteristics of urban digital twins and identifying joint components and functions as building blocks for developing a conceptual framework of urban digital twins for sustainable digital transformation. In total, we identified six main components that could be subdivided into 16 sub-components. Moreover, we identified four main features that could be subdivided into ten sub-features. A conceptual framework for urban digital twins is proposed based on those components and features. Two case studies were conducted to illustrate the framework's applicability. It is an overarching goal that the proposed framework will become a useful reference and decision-making tool for urban planners, designers, constructors, and others.