Insights from the Digital Twin Conference: 

How can DT help us to manage our public infrastructure?

Last week we were excited to join the Digital Twin conference, organised by the lovely folks of Xenomatix, our partner in infrastructure monitoring & asset management.

With speakers from both industry & public sector, the conference provided eye-opening examples of how digital twins can help us to manage our public infrastructure.

These are our 5 key takeaways:

1. New technology allows for a much faster, safer, more detailed and cheaper collection of field data. Whether it’s a road profile lidar or embedded structural integrity sensors, there are many options to optimise field data collection.
2. Big data sets are useless without analysis. As we can easily collect huge amounts of data, it’s key to extract or analyse the data into insights that are easy to understand & actionable for the asset maintenance & operation teams. Stick to known KPI’s for a starter and expand with relevant & trustworthy insights where needed.
3. Sharing & combining data is key to gain overview & insights. #Aquafin presented their sewer asset management tool which brings together data from multiple road infrastructure & utility providers. This combination allows for a much better prioritisation of road renovation works.
4. Fast-changing mobility with the increasing use of bikes demands new road quality evaluation frameworks for bicycle paths. Current innovative projects from Xenomatix, BBRC and Zensor are key to define these frameworks.
5. Last but not least, the total cost of ownership for road infrastructure can be optimised. To realise this, we need to evaluate road infrastructure at a much higher frequency. This allows us to define the right condition-based maintenance actions with the right priority and timing.