Digital Twins’ Use Cases: The Need for Supportive Policy Frameworks

Digital twins offer transformational potential in green infrastructure modelling, transport or healthcare planning, and defence simulations by increasing oversight, reducing risk, avoiding budget overruns, and integrating IoT data. Recent advancements in massive-scale human behaviour modelling, real-time data processing, and compute efficiency are expanding their applications.

However, we are yet to see UK policymakers fully realise their potential and Digital Twin adoption remains limited. The reality is that 91.5% of infrastructure projects exceed their budgets, timelines, or both. Such failures waste billions in taxpayer money, undermining public trust in the government's ability to deliver essential infrastructure.

The need for supportive policies that encourage Digital Twin adoption has never been greater.

Case Study 1: ‘Leading by Example’: Harnessing Digital Twin Innovation in APAC

The Indonesian Government's initiative with Skyral demonstrates how this technology can have real impact for a complex and developing population. With over 15m Indonesian children affected by stunting—more than 20% nationwide—conventional interventions had achieved only 0.1% reduction annually. Digital twin technology revealed policy insights that could reduce this devastating condition 50x faster.

Applying Modelling & Simulation to the Digital Twin enabled users to test thousands of scenarios across nutrition, education, and healthcare. Simulations revealed strategies such as increasing meal delivery by 70%, which added 1.4m meals daily for children. Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, Imam Machdi, emphasised: "The key challenge in tackling stunting is building convergent policies. With this technology, we can precisely monitor multiple interventions simultaneously, laying a foundation for evidence-based policymaking."

Case Study 2: ‘At Home Impact:’ The Power of Digital Twin Adoption for the UK’s Future Smart Cities

In UK infrastructure, Transport for London’s Surface Intelligent Transport System can potentially benefit from the same predictive technology used by Indonesia, by leveraging reactive and proactive "what if?" modelling. If, for example, a long-term bridge closure is

planned across the Thames, the impact extends beyond potential traffic dynamics caused by the closure. A Digital Twin’s predictive impact assessments can include traffic jams and crashes affected by it, on a pan-London basis. Incorporating additional factors, such as weather, enables proactive planning for future scenarios, and dynamic reactive adjustments to traffic flow. These reduce delays and increase road user safety, providing considerable economic benefit.

Case Study 3: Digital Twins and Their Role in Defence & National Security

In Defence applications, Skyral modelled the MoD's telecommunications network to prepare for the Next Generation Communication Network. The project located bottlenecks and vulnerabilities, simulating them across scenarios, including wargaming and civilian telecommunications usage. The overseeing General noted this capability provided oversight "in ways that just weren't possible before." This highlights how sparsely Digital Twins are used in British military contexts and their potential to enhance the UK’s operational edge.

Conclusion

Employing Digital Twins in the delivery of major government and infrastructure programmes would reduce risk and cost overrun, whilst leveraging predictive capabilities and enhancing integration between stakeholders. With the forthcoming Infrastructure Bill, the UK has an opportunity to bolster the Building Information Modeling standard to Level 3 in order to mandate the use of Digital Twins in government infrastructure programmes.

In addition to the BIM-3 mandate, formal guidance that supports stakeholders like Local Authorities, transport agencies, or the MoD in decision-making processes would be well-received.

As these case studies show, emphasis on human behaviour modelling and multi-variable "what if?" planning is particularly valuable. Without such frameworks, mandates, and guidance, the adoption of Digital Twins will remain tempered, despite their proven benefits.

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