A digital twin in transportation: Real-time synergy of traffic data streams and simulation for virtualizing motorway dynamics

The introduction of digital twins is expected to fundamentally change the technology in transportation systems, as they appear to be a compelling concept for monitoring the entire life cycle of the transport system. The advent of widespread information technology, particularly the availability of real-time traffic data, provides the foundation for supplementing predominated (offline) microscopic simulation approaches with actual data to create a detailed real-time digital representation of the physical traffic. However, the use of actual traffic data in real-time motorway analysis has not yet been explored. The reason is that there are no supporting models and the applicability of real-time data in the context of microscopic simulations has yet to be recognized. Thus, this article focuses on microscopic motorway simulation with real-time data integration during system run-time. As a result, we propose a novel paradigm in motorway traffic modeling and demonstrate it using the continuously synchronized digital twin model of the Geneva motorway (DT-GM). We analyze the application of the microscopic simulator SUMO in modeling and simulating on-the-fly synchronized digital replicas of real traffic by leveraging fine-grained actual traffic data streams from motorway traffic counters as input to DT-GM. Thus, the detailed methodological process of developing DT-GM is presented, highlighting the calibration features of SUMO that enable (dynamic) continuous calibration of running simulation scenarios. By doing so, the actual traffic data are directly fused into the running DT-GM every minute so that DT-GM is continuously calibrated as the physical equivalent changes. Accordingly, DT-GM raises a technology dimension in motorway traffic simulation to the next level by enabling simulation-based control optimization during system run-time that was previously unattainable. It, thus, forms the foundation for further evolution of real-time predictive analytics as support for safety–critical decisions in traffic management. Simulation results provide a solid basis for the future real-time analysis of an extended Swiss motorway network.