Urban digital twins: New DIN standard published

After more than two years of intensive collaboration with over 40 experts from municipalities, associations, politics, science and business, the team of the “Connected Urban Twins” (CUT) cooperation project has published the new DIN SPEC 91607 “Digital Twins for Cities and Municipalities”. This standard marks an important milestone in the standardization of digital twins in Germany. The specification provides cities and municipalities with a comprehensive basis for implementing digital twins, whereby existing standards and best practices can be used. A central component of the specification is the defined use cases, which are based on over 100 scenarios. These cover a wide range of areas such as mobility, energy, environment, security and urban planning.

What are “urban digital twins”?

Urban digital twins are digital images of cities and municipalities that are kept up to date by continuously comparing them with reality. They are based on data, technical components, interfaces and functionalities from different areas such as geoinformation, traffic systems, environmental information and energy supply.

Background

On 8 October 2024, the specification “Digital twins for cities and municipalities” (DIN SPEC 91607) was published by the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). The document was the result of two and a half years of intensive work by over 45 representatives from local authorities, associations, politics, science and business. Many German cities and municipalities are working on the concept of digital twins in the context of digitalization. Although the term “urban digital twins” is being used more and more frequently, a clear definition and a uniform understanding in terms of application, content and architecture have been lacking until now. The new DIN specification closes this gap. To increase the standard’s reach, a translation into English is planned so that cities and municipalities in Europe can also benefit from the specification.