The London Borough of Harrow has launched a new digital twin, enabling remote building inspections and more immersive online experiences for citizens
Harrow’s digital twin uses high-resolution drone imagery to enable faster, more cost-effective maintenance surveys, while 3D maps of parks are helping increase public use of green space.
The council is also piloting the use of drones to help plan and support anti-fly-tipping actions.
“The new drone approach is already saving time and money and fits our mission to work smarter and more efficiently. With minimal investment, the 3D data has the potential to deliver significant financial benefits over the next few years,” explained Ben Jones, head of digital at the London Borough of Harrow.
How Harrow’s digital twin is increasing green space use
As part of the Healthier Harrow programme, interactive 360-degree imagery of the borough’s parks is being used to encourage greater use of public green space, with Canons Park among the first to go live.
Harrow’s digital twin uses 3D interactive maps, which are more engaging than 2D visuals when promoting facilities such as parks, leisure centres and libraries.
Healthier Harrow is an overarching health and wellbeing strategy that aims to reduce health inequalities and promote healthier lifestyles.
High-resolution 3D images give better insights into fly tipping
Harrow’s digital twin is also set to use new drone technology to tackle fly-tipping.
High-resolution 3D images of potential dumping sites will enable the environmental team to better plan preventive measures, including the positioning of signage, fencing, and CCTV.
Providing the 3D context of sites is expected to yield more valuable insights into why certain locations suffer more from illegal waste dumping than others.
Driving down building maintenance costs
Esri’s Site Scan for ArcGIS processes unlimited drone flight data in the cloud to create 2D and 3D outputs, including point clouds and high-quality 3D meshes.
Distances, surface areas and volumes can be measured with Harrow’s digital twin, supporting a wide range of planning and maintenance tasks.
“Using a drone and Site Scan gives us a faster and more cost-effective method of examining our buildings and other assets,” stated Sam Tizzard, head of GIS and data manager, London Borough of Harrow.
“The hybrid approach using high- and low-resolution data keeps development costs down but delivers detail where it matters most. It’s a low-cost, low-risk strategy for creating a digital twin to drive significant time and cost savings. The potential for ongoing savings in roof inspections alone is huge.”
Future developments: Incorporating real-time data into Harrow’s digital twin
Next steps include automating the integration of Revit BIM models into Harrow’s digital twin and training additional staff as drone pilots to meet the growing demand for aerial data.
Future plans include incorporating real-time data into the digital twin, such as traffic and weather data and testing the live monitoring of potential fly-tipping sites using drones.
Paul Clarke, head of government at Esri UK, concluded: “By making digital twins more affordable with drones and Site Scan, the London Borough of Harrow is enabling smarter asset management, better planning and improved services for residents.”
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