At a glance:
Real-time data simulation requires a complete picture
To understand your city, you have to understand what’s coming and goingÂ
Sharing insights across cities enables and strengthens regional decision-making
Greater Phoenix is exploring a collaborative approach to regional digital twins
Digital twins emerged as essential tools across private industry visualizing and optimizing processes, creating new efficiencies and enhancing collaborative control. Unlike warehouses or hospitals however, cities are not self contained systems. To sufficiently take advantage of Digital Twins in urban management, regional collaboration must be a consideration.
Digital Twins: A Game-Changer for Urban Management
The use of digital twin technology in urban management is rapidly advancing, with governments around the globe embracing this technology at an accelerated pace. According to the Digital Twins Report 2024, more than 95% of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms will contain some form of digital twinning capability by 2029, with digital twin-supported solutions in smart cities to reach $5.9 billion by 2029. While we like to think of twins as emerging technologies, they are in fact beginning to mature.Â
For cities in Arizona and beyond that are currently using or are considering using digital twins to improve city services, regionality doesn’t simply mean efficiency, it means building an accurate representation of the living system.
What is a Digital Twin? Beyond 3D Models to Real-Life Replication
Level-setting is important to this conversation, as understanding what a digital twin is can vary dramatically depending on who you talk to. Digital twins are not simply 3D digital representations of physical assets, although that is a part of it. Digital Twins are virtual replicas of entire systems. A 3D model of a city for example may help with visualizing planning efforts, but a digital twin mirrors the variables, movements, and processes that exist within that space to assist with complex scenario planning and decision making.
For example:
Visualizing a new development may help communities engage on the design of the space; but understanding the project's impact on traffic, parking, and walkability is powerful.
Representing available real estate for developers can help economic developers without the need for physical trips; but layering the demographic and economic data can demonstrate net economic benefit.Â
Replicating roadways and transit systems may help visualize public safety routes; but adding in systems data can allow for simulating difficult to reproduce or even catastrophic events.Â
Mapping underground infrastructure such as water mains can help in identifying where to dig; but digitally integrating those systems can allow for automated leak detection or enhancing utility efficiency.
By combining public data sets, active IoT sensors, building permits, aerial and satellite photography, and beyond, we can accurately reflect city processes. This replication of real life variables. Cities however, face one major constraint that many private sector digital twins do not: City systems are not self contained.Â
Why Regionality Matters: Real-World Use Cases of Digital Twins
With more than 20 cities and towns making up the Greater Phoenix area, Arizona is its own melting pot of local governments whose actions impact neighboring cities and towns. Residents of Tempe and Goodyear may work in Phoenix, Avondale, or Scottsdale. Those same residents may travel to Surprise for Spring Training or visit family in Gilbert. The lives of Arizona residents and visitors are interconnected. As such, any city system that does not account for these inflows and outflows will not accurately represent its actual state.
Just as silos within an organization limit efficiency, disconnected digital twins among neighboring cities limit their potential. Consider the lay example of air quality monitoring: Air doesn't stop at the invisible walls that define a city, so attempting to track pollution in Tempe means little without understanding the air quality of surrounding cities.Â
What of the economic developers who want to better understand and predict future growth? This is not done in isolation. The development of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company in North Phoenix, for example, will have widespread impacts on development well beyond Phoenix's borders. To understand the impact of traffic, congestion, housing requirements, and more, a digital twin of the neighboring City of Peoria will need to be integrated into that of the City of Phoenix. Otherwise, the results would be guesswork at best or completely unrepresentative at worst.Â
Tackling shared issues like homelessness, rising temperatures, and water scarcity requires an understanding that extends beyond city borders. Combining digital twin capabilities regionally not only reveals more complete insights but also provides context on origins and potential developments for a holistic understanding—and the potential for meaningful change.Â
How Shared Digital Twin Technology Benefits Regional Cities
By working together, cities can unlock the full potential of digital twins, gaining insights and efficiencies that extend beyond individual city limits, such as:
Traffic: Advanced traffic monitoring helps alleviate congestion, but stopping at city borders limits its efficacy. A regional digital twin allows real-time cross-border analysis, aiding in quick responses to road construction or accidents. Currently these efforts are done via GIS tools but the increased visualization across regional datasets allows for additional predictive planning. For example, a simple road closure may look innocent enough on paper but visualizing the pedestrian traffic an adjacent stadium brings can rapidly change the scope of the problem.Â
Tourism: For major events, digital twins can provide regional planners with insights into visitor trends. This can enhance experiences across Arizona by preparing services and offering comprehensive ‘pre-visit’ checklists. Currently, cities use digital twins to display their communities' resources and offerings. When the Super Bowl came to Greater Phoenix in 2023, visitors stayed in Scottsdale, attended the game in Glendale, went to the NFL experience in Phoenix and celebrated across the entire region. To adequately understand the impact of mega-events across so many jurisdictions, a regional perspective must be taken.
Environmental Monitoring:Â Digital twins can monitor air quality, heat patterns, and water systems. As water scarcity affects the Valley similarly across cities, regional data can help cities better assess conservation efforts and understand effects up- and downstream.Â
Emergency Management: While emergency management can be done on pen and paper or GIS, assessing scope and scale for wildfire mitigation, ascertaining floodplains and simulating special scenarios takes on completely new meaning as you bring communities together.
Digital Twins: Practical & Applicable
Digital twins are already in action in Arizona and beyond, helping cities improve efficiency, save money, and make better decisions.Â
City of Phoenix: In August 2024, Downtown Phoenix launched its first official digital twin, which uses aggregated data to showcase air quality, prime urban heat locations, zoning ordinances, and real-time traffic patterns. City planners also use the data to strategize for future development and to create simulations that impact business and policy decisions.
City of Surprise:Â The City of Surprise created its first digital twin, which includes both a City Data View showing off real-time data on a 3D map, as well as street and ground views that engage the community and can help planners, interested businesses, real estate brokers, and the public to visualize future developments.
Beyond these first regional pioneers in digital twins, additional communities have identified use cases that are now entering or already in development. Current examples such as digital twins for wayfinding or optimizing solar energy adoption strategies are emerging, but also unique cases such as advanced heat simulation to understand, for example, the impacts of extreme heat against rising utility costs.Â
Other cities around the world, from Amsterdam to Singapore, or San Diego to Abu Dhabi, have digital twin models that are enhancing their cities’ capabilities ranging from disaster response to tourism. While new use cases are still appearing every day, the potential of twins is now inarguable.Â
Regional Collaboration: Unlocking the Full Potential of Digital Twins
Digital twins are becoming a mature technology, with cities worldwide adopting and reaping their benefits. However, some city leaders remain hesitant, seeing digital twins as untested or emerging technologies. These leaders should look to global examples where digital twins are currently addressing urban challenges and explore how similar strategies could be tailored to local needs. Moreover, as adoption increases, cities can unlock greater value through collaboration, creating economies of scale that benefit entire regions.
Connected regions, however, face the added complexity of aligning systems and data across multiple jurisdictions. In areas like Greater Phoenix, many municipalities already benefit from shared GIS standards, which facilitate collaboration between cities, neighboring towns, Municipal Planning Organizations (MPOs), and county governments. Early coordination in digital twin adoption is critical to avoiding the costly pitfalls of data fragmentation and isolated systems.
By adopting compatible digital twin platforms, cities can take this coordination further, building an interconnected dataset that provides an accurate regional reflection. Even if cities develop their twins incrementally, prioritizing interoperability from the start ensures these systems can grow together. The result is a cohesive, regional digital twin that bridges intermunicipal data gaps and offers a comprehensive view of the region's dynamics.
Beyond the specific use cases enabled by regional thinking, additional tangible benefits exist as well:Â
Economies of Scale: Cities that codevelop can dilute the cost of projects across cities, explore cooperative purchasing agreements or otherwise enjoy economies of scale on an otherwise expensive ticket item.Â
Transferability: Digital twins that share standards or development environments can readily share use cases. A city that develops an LLM agent to assist citizens could for example share such an innovation across city borders with reduced time to implementation for neighboring communities.Â
Enhanced data insights: One local city discovered in a study that the majority of both its crime and shopping was done by residents of nearby communities, not their own city. Regional data leads to regional insights that can help local leaders from public safety to economic developers make more informed decisions.Â
The Connective's Role
At the heart of all of this, The Connective is helping coordinate across the Greater Phoenix region to help achieve such possibilities. While our work is somewhat different for each of the communities we work with, our efforts include:
Fractional consultancy: We augment the expertise and personnel in city planning, CIO offices, and innovation teams.
Digital twin implementation:Â We help cities implement and leverage digital twins.
Education and community outreach:Â We facilitate regional discussions and host events that bring urban planners and technology partners together.
As the leader in digital twin technology in the Greater Phoenix region, our consortium hosts events such as our Digital Twin Workshop, technology symposiums, and smart region summits. The Connective brings together government leaders, university scholars, community partners, and business owners to collaborate on a strong vision for a smart future in the Valley.
By fostering dialogue and knowledge sharing, we are building the Greater Phoenix area into one of the country’s – and the world’s – leaders in digital twin use, driving the creation of better cities and towns for all who visit and live here.
Make Regionality a Priority
For town and city leaders exploring digital twin technology, a regional, collaborative approach offers substantial benefits. Through shared applications, collective bargaining, and streamlined purchasing, The Connective has found that cities can save up to 30–40% through collaboration. By sharing data and strategies through compatible systems, regional cities can make smarter, faster decisions, maximizing the impact of digital twin technology across Greater Phoenix.
The Connective continues to plan digital twin-focused events and participate in smart city conferences around the globe. The Connective also continually advances its expertise at smart city conferences worldwide, bringing these insights back to support member communities in creating a better place to live, work, and play.
We encourage city leaders to connect with us at an upcoming event to learn more about our regional vision. Together, we can position Greater Phoenix as a leader in digital twin technology, enhancing services, safety, and quality of life for residents and visitors alike.
If you’d like to learn more about evolving city technology like digital twins, connect with The Connective for information and collaboration opportunities. We’re continually expanding our membership to foster impactful conversations among city planners, business, university, and technology leaders dedicated to Greater Phoenix’s success.