South Africa should look at growing technologies such as ‘digital twins’ to improve service delivery across the country’s municipalities, says Bonga Ntuli, director of the Infrastructure Business Unit at engineering consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV Southern Africa.
A ‘digital twin’ is a digital replica of physical assets, such as buildings or water pipe networks. By sharing data between the virtual and real-world environment; municipalities, city planners, and private companies can pre-empt issues through proactive maintenance, he said.
Two practical ways in which it can help our towns and cities is with managing the country’s road and water infrastructures, said Ntuli.With a digital twin of a city or town’s existing road network; decision-makers at municipal, provincial, and national level can use live data to identify where maintenance is needed and even predict where the formation of potholes typically occurs, said Ntuli.
He added that much of South Africa’s stormwater, water provision, and sewage infrastructure is decades old, and a lot of it is structurally compromised. Digital twins could give citizens a visual representation of infrastructure and essential services, thereby giving them a better understanding of the work municipalities are doing and planning, he said.The City of Johannesburg announced in August that it would be piloting a digital twin model of its inner-city.
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