Digital twin in delivering infrastructure sector projects

Abstract

The United Kingdom (UK) is moving towards advancing digitalisation in delivering infrastructure sector projects with Digital Twins (DTs) being at the forefront of this improvement. The anticipated strong growth of the infrastructure industry over the coming decades will require more modern, digital approaches to create data centric infrastructure that allows infrastructure to be monitored and managed throughout its lifecycle. Digital Twins is currently seen to be in an infancy stage with regards to implementation on infrastructure projects across the UK. However, the UK Government has recognised the potential impact using DTs will have on upcoming infrastructure projects demonstrating the positive influence DTs has to support planning, predicting, and understanding infrastructure assets. However, it is unclear how far this technology is developing in order to maximise its impact in the infrastructure industry. The purpose of this paper is to understand the current uptake of DTs within the UKs infrastructure sector and how DTs can help contribute towards strengthening the industry. The conclusion of this review suggests uptake in of DTs is low in relation to the infrastructure sector and further research is required to demonstrate the potential for DTs to help improve and increase the awareness and understanding of the topic to aid digital representation holistically on UK infrastructure projects.