3D Digital Twin for Public Inclusion: What is Project PLATEAU?   

The digital transition is here. While some policymakers fret about the implications of a growing digital divide, there is a way of harnessing the power of digital tools to close gaps and make places more inclusive. Welcome to the world of project PLATEAU. 

Implementation of 3D imagery in local urban planning authorities 

PLATEAU is a collaborative project for local governments, private enterprises and experts to promote the use of 3D digital twin models of cities, launched by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) in 2020. These models capture the city’s physical form of buildings as well as attributes including age, structure, and use.  

Hachioji City, located in the western part of Tokyo Prefecture, is one example of an area leading the charge. The city is using its digital twin to visualise the redevelopment of area sand provide citizens with opportunities to interact with urban planning using augmented reality (AR) to envision their renovation ideas on a map.  

PLATEAU’s use of 3D visualisation helped participants understand how new urban facilities and land use would look and function and attracted more young participants than previous sessions using traditional 2D schematic drawings and explaining documents. Moreover, the 3D images are evaluated highly as intuitive and easy to understand, even for the elderly. 

Urban workshops in Hachioji City (Use of VR Googles) 

Other cities such as Gifu and Hiroshima are also embracing this more inclusive approach to urban planning. In Gifu city, residents and retailers are observing these tools in the stakeholders’ workshop to create a walkable environment of the city’s centre street, and 87% of citizens responded that they had a clear image and understanding of the proposed reconstruction of the street space. 

In Hiroshima, immersive techniques are employed, including Extended Reality (XR), to provide stakeholders with 3D images of future pedestrian spaces, simulating actual facility maintenance. In the workshop in Hiroshima City, 3D models planned transit mall were created and superimposed on the real world on the streets of the target area, allowing the participants to experience and discuss the size and landscape of the planned transit mall. 

Implementation in Gifu city (left) and Hiroshima city (right) 

Benefits and costs of 3D visualisation 

These visualisations help create better and more inclusive urban plans. They also help defuse public opposition to needed infrastructure, which can derail developments, by helping allay resident fears over potential negative impacts on their region.  

Generating 3D imagery models can be a complex and costly process. Models need to be designed, maintained, and updated regularly to retain value. However, PLATEAU provides a common platform, aligned to the international standard City GML developed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). This allows costs to be shared across multiple cities and is driven by a basic database informed by existing urban planning surveys, significantly reducing this cost and effort. Moreover, ongoing technological advancements, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), and satellite data integration, will also help automate data collection and minimise the costs associated with updating 3D models.  

Toward international discussion and practice 

While the implementation of 3D digital displays in urban planning is not exclusive to PLATEAU, its distinctive approach allows for sharing, interoperability across cities and a common database to reduce implementation costs. By 2024, 200 cities in Japan have created 3D models by PLATEAU and it is expanded to 500 cities , which is above one-fourth of Japanese cities, by 2027. 

Project PLATEAU is a brand-new project initiated by young members of our Ministry and has already had an impact in Japan. Yet we are only scratching the surface of what can be achieved with digital twins in creating more inclusive cities, and new technology is emerging day-by-day. Stakeholders across the world should work together to inspire each other with new possibilities and share ways of navigating these new tools, and we are eager to learn.