The Twinning for Decarbonising Project, or TransiT, entered a six month consultation process with the help of £500,000 in initial funding. With support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the project will explore the digital capabilities to reduce carbon emissions from transportation in the UK. 

The cornerstone of the project is to create a digital twin of the UK’s transport infrastructure. Digital twins are virtual representations of physical systems, used to offer insight into the performance of that system using data from sensors, IoT devices, and other sources.

“Through digital twinning technology, we can couple these previously distributed, complex and dynamic networks, assets and services, into a representative and real-time common virtual (digital) environment as to explore how best to create solutions for the operational and planning challenges we face,” said Professor David Flynn from the University of Glasgow.

“Digital twins allow us to explore new relationships and partnerships, in near to real-time, to enable a responsible and effective transition in the decarbonisation of the UK’s road, rail, maritime and aviation systems, as well as incorporating new developments like autonomous vehicles,” he continued. 

Thanks to the growing accessibility of sensor technology and the growing power of computers, digital twins have gained widespread popularity, particularly in the healthcare and aerospace sectors. While digital twins have been used in the transport sector before, it was generally for individual system components.

The need for this comes as the UK looks to reduce its carbon footprint by 78% before 2035. According to researchers at Heriot-Watt, transport accounts for approximately one third of total emissions, making the potential change this digital twin offers “transformative.”

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“We don’t have long to work out what we need to do, and digital twins along with other digital approaches offer the fastest route to de-risking investment and accelerating decarbonisation,” said Professor Phil Greening from Heriot-Watt University.

According to the researchers involved with the project, the energy transition to date has separated energy and transport systems. As such, investments have thus far failed to deliver the required rate of decarbonisation needed to address the effects of climate change.  

The project was unveiled by the Transport Technology and Decarbonisation Minister Jesse Norman on 22 June during the inaugural Connected Digital Twins Summit. The results from the consultation phase will inform research priorities, structure, and membership of the proposed TransiT Hub for the project’s second phase.

Dr Kathryn Magnay, EPSRC’s deputy director for cross-council programmes said: “This important systems level work will take us one step closer to the creation of a digital twinning research hub which will support and accelerate the decarbonisation and integration of the UK’s transport systems.”