Challenge

In order to meet the Flemish goals with respect to air quality and climate standards, local governments, as directors of public space, will have to take effective and well-considered mobility measures. 

The Department of Mobility and Public Works and the Flemish Environment Agency want to support local governments in this by developing a modular Digital Twin application. This application will enable local governments, in a user-friendly and interactive way, to calculate the impact of traffic measures on mobility, air quality and CO₂ emissions so that local governments can make well-founded decisions.  

In addition, the application should also offer the possibility to quickly calculate promising traffic measures. Thus, local governments can quickly make indicative estimates of route effects, the modal split/shift and the mobility effects of a traffic measure. Also, the application should offer a more detailed calculationmode in order to estimate in a precise manner and  within a workable calculation time the effects on choice of route, the traffic system and the according mobility effects. 

This dual goal results in a collaboration between the Department of Mobility and Public Works and the Flemish Environment Agency, in which the intent is to develop an essential building block: a calculation tool for the effects of local mobility measures on the environment, the output of which includes vehicle performance expressed in vehicle kilometers. This mobility calculation engine should be able to calculate local mobility effects in an efficient and scalable manner. The Flemish Environment Agency already has another building block that converts vehicle performance into detailed air quality simulations. The intent is to link these systems so that mobility and environmental impacts can be analyzed in an integrated manner.  

This innovative approach will enable local governments to contribute more efficiently and effectively to improved air quality and reduced CO₂ emissions.