The development and delivery of smart cities involves many different systems, types of data, and sets of information. This complexity, and the dynamic interaction between the large numbers of stakeholders and city systems, makes planning and managing cities a great challenge. Without a tangible operational model to combine cross-sector data and information, the holistic, cross-boundary planning of cities, districts and neighbourhoods remains constrained. Therefore, new and effective tools are needed to enable the delivery of better city services and to make the urban environment more liveable, inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

City information modelling (CIM) and urban digital twins (UDT) are two emerging technologies for smart cities that aim to provide such tools. Both offer solutions for data processing, urban analysis, design, simulation and modelling. They connect all involved stakeholders and actors to collaboratively deliver the vision of a smart city: a sustainable, inclusive, healthy, prosperous and participative city. They provide solutions for smart cities based on open standards and a multiscale and multitemporal database that integrates a wide variety of data sources presenting the full range of smart urban features, systems and processes.

This report is an output of the international conference, Conversation between City Information Modelling and Urban Digital Twins: 2021 Virtual Forum, organized by IEC SyC Smart Cities and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41: Internet of things and digital twin, and held on 22-23 June 2021.

This IEC Technology Report is available for free download.