Ongoing Project

Blerta

As Tirana is undergoing major urban development in the last decade, I wanted to bring to your attention the necessity of strengthening the city infrastructure, which falls under one of the priorities of Tirana Municipality – Go Tirana Smart City 2016 – 2026. The project that I propose is The Digital Twin of Tirana.

My proposal for the first milestone that can be accomplished in 1 year period can be divided in 3 steps:

– The 3D modeling (BIM) of 1 facility which is known as DIGITAL SHADOW. I propose a school or kindergarten uilding. This can be done using scanning and other technologies.

– Inserting the sensors to ensure the bidirectional flow of the information. This is very important to detect a condition or event that requires an almost immediate response which in case of schools and kindergartens will have a strong impact in the operation of the facility.

– Establish the data processing & management that involves the further processing of gathered data until the system is ready to provide feedback or even make a decision.

The digital twin of Tirana will precede the city’s growth and evolution finding immense use in urban planning of the city, allocating resources, providing security, maximizing services, facilitating human activities, and preventing disruption, while continuously adapting to the changing behaviors of the citizens.

Digital twins are intelligent interactive systems that consist of two components: the physical asset and the digital twin providing a bidirectional communication, data flow (physical digital) and feedback & decision making (digital  physical). As this is a very complex and ambitious project that will need time and a lot of resources to be completed, I propose to set some realistic milestones, making use of the best practices of cities like: Hague, Zurich, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dubai, or even smaller cities as Chattanooga, etc.

In the actual situation where a strong importance is being given to schools and kindergartens of our city, this project will highly affect the management, efficiency, operability and decision making in regards to these facilities. This project can be further expanded, i.e. street lighting, traffic management, public parking, payment methods, energy conservation and efficiency are some of the areas where the digital twin of the city can find use, but not limited to. Finally, my vision for the digital twin of Tirana is to establish a safe and sustainable environment that is developing with the same pace as the urbanization, as well as the increase of urban population.