Building Digital Twins in Europe

Building Digital Twins

The LEAD project

The LEAD project was EU initiative in which the creation of Digital Twins in six European cities were developed. In Madrid, The Hague, Lyon, Budapest, Oslo, and Porto so-called living labs were developed in order to experiment and facilitate decision making with on-demand logistics operations. City logistics solutions were developed through a set of value case scenarios that address the requirements of the on-demand economy and the pressures caused by the increase of parcel deliveries. Each of these value case combined a number of measures coined as LEAD Strategies to cover the complete dynamics and complexity of today’s city’s logistics challenges.

Efficient Operations

The ultimate objective of introducing these Digital Twins in last mile logistics was to improve the operation and efficiency of parcel delivery, reduce costs and externalities through forecasting and predictions of future states and support advanced decision making through the entire logistics lifecycle, while also fostering stakeholder participation via reliable real-life information.

Data-driven Decisions

Technology enablers for building Digital Twins include modelling, predictive analytics and decision-making methods, and the use of lifecycle-oriented knowledge with historical and real-time operational and city data. A Dynamic Data-Driven Application System (DDDAS) will manage the real-time coordination of models and data, interfacing to digital platforms, APIs and sensors and integrating city data in the models.

The Digital Twins enable the co-design of value cases by suppliers, shippers, policy makers and urban planners, and the development of solutions for integrated systems of logistics/freight operations in urban, metropolitan and peri-urban areas, introducing low-emission, connected/automated delivery vehicles.

Long term vision

LEAD aims to design an open framework for smart city logistics, thus setting the foundations for the development of large-scale city Digital Twins. By exploiting contextual, sensor and real-time operational data, city-scale Digital Twins will facilitate the comprehension of the dynamics of logistics networks in the city and the integrated planning and management of freight movement.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 861598 The sole responsibility for the content of this website lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the Agency nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. LEAD is a project under the CIVITAS Initiative, an EU-funded programme working to make sustainable and smart mobility a reality for all. Read more – civitas.eu

In this project we used a set of supply chain network models to simulate the different scenario’s and simulate the performance and lead-times: Simulation module of our Spanning Tree platform, Multi-echelon inventory optimization and costs database.
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