Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Matera’s Urban Digital Twin and Challenges in Data Integration

This work is part of the project CTEMT “House of Emerging Technologies of Matera” aims to develop an ICT platform, i.e., “Alpha model”, connecting sensor networks with advanced simulation and monitoring services for the creation of the urban digital twin of the city of Matera. The ambition is to build a set of digital models for city systems to analyze the complex dynamics of the urban environment. The first phase required a detailed context analysis to explain the role and function of the “model Alpha” in the city of Matera, identifying the main thematic structures territorial of the city and their connections and effects on the area. For this purpose, the urban context is analyzed by splitting it into three different spatial information layers: Point Of Interest, road graph and public space. The implementation of an operational urban digital twin was found to be a complex process involving several technical and logistical challenges even before the mapping phase began. Beyond data collection and integration to provide accurate representations of the urban environment to the model, another challenge was the engagement of analysts from multiple disciplines throughout the deployment process. Indeed, different semantic interpretations of information and purposes of the urban digital twin have emerged. This work aims to give an overview of the CTEMT experience and analyze the critical issues related to the development of urban digital twin.