Twinning for Decarbonising Transport (TransiT)

The UK's transport sector faces urgent challenges in dealing with climate change, energy transitions and cyber security. Decarbonisation of transport, with its shared infrastructure and complex interdependencies, throws into sharp focus the need to consider a whole-system view of physical and socio-economic systems in infrastructure and operations.

Existing digital twin models offer risk free interaction and scenario planning with individual cyber-physical infrastructure systems; however, they often operate in isolation from each other, making assumptions about behaviour of external factors at the analysis boundary. In the net-zero context, these externalities, which often include aspects such as energy supply and grid infrastructure, as well as the behaviour of other transport modes, will change rapidly due to the pace of infrastructure and operational interventions needed for rapid decarbonisation; this will impact all transport systems simultaneously. We therefore need to develop a new paradigm, extending boundaries of digital twins into an interconnected whole system view, and incorporating digital twins with other types of modelling. This paradigm shift represents the only viable pathway to de-risking the investments needed to achieve net-zero by 2050, and to be effective it must be widely accepted by all. We passionately believe that the new paradigm needs to be co-created with stakeholders through an exhaustive and inclusive process of engagement across all communities.

The Twinning in Decarbonising Transport (TransiT) project will lead a multi-disciplinary, inclusive, and extensive consultation across industry, academia, civil society and policymakers to develop a network capable of identifying both the most pertinent issues in UK transport decarbonisation that can be addressed by greater use of digital twins, and the most fruitful links between such digital twins across transport modes to maximise benefits to all groups alike, including policymakers, transport practitioners, and transport users from wider society.

Our cross-sector consortium will assist in planning a proposal for a national research hub to tackle these issues. The hub will be designed to focus on where investable research and maximum societal impact can be sought by combining digital twins from different modes and encouraging the secure data-sharing activities that will enable this. The agenda will be shaped by an inclusive consultation through a series of events focused on collaboration and co-creation. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) principles will be embedded from the start to gain the necessary depth and breadth of views necessary for formation of a robust research agenda.