Towards Architectural Coordination of Digital Twin Development in Urban Planning

Abstract

Digital Twins (DTs) carry the promise of improved decision-making about, as well as monitoring and understanding of, the twinned entity. This makes them an attractive instrument to support the, often complex and multi-faceted, decision-making processes germane to urban planning. DTs require considerable technological investments, as they tend to be data-hungry and computing-intensive. Business-wise, such investments are only meaningful if they really add value to the intended decision-making processes. However, most current DT development approaches primarily focus on the technological potential of DTs within the limited scope of isolated business scenarios, and rarely address trade-offs between costs and benefits towards the business case, let alone the broader implications for IT/IS portfolio management. These broader considerations are crucial in urban planning contexts, which typically involve a broad ecosystem of parties, complex decision-making challenges, and pre-existing technological landscapes. Drawing on the discipline of Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), this paper argues that architectural coordination of DT development initiatives would enable more effective valorisation of DTs potential, and more effective management of DT-related technology within a broader technological landscape. To this end, the paper discusses the vision for and an initial sketch of a specialisation of EAM for DT development.