Impact in urban living labs : digital twin case of Bruges

Abstract

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are increasingly used as an approach to facilitate sustainable solutions for urban challenges. Urban Digital Twins (UDTs) are regarded as technological enablers to assist in policy and data-driven decision making, capable of providing answers to urban challenges. In this paper we present a case study on an ULL project that resulted in the development of an UDT application in the Belgian city of Bruges. With this study, we looked for answers to two research questions: 1. How can an ULL approach be used to scope and develop an UDT application? 2. What is the actual impact of a fully functional UDT application for the city officials involved in the ULL process? The novelty of our research lies in the combination of ULLs and UDTs with the inclusion of a post hoc impact assessment. Main findings are that working with an ULL approach to scope and develop the Digital Twin use case yielded positive results in terms of desirability and feasibility of the project. However, in terms of viability of a complete Digital Twin solution for a single city, some issues were identified. The most added value was generated in terms of unintended learning regarding the followed ULL processes and innovation management approach which resulted in the adoption of new ways of collaboration and uncovered innovation opportunities for the city officials.