A cycle route can look continuous and wide enough on a map, yet one awkward crossing may shape the entire ride. The CITWIN research project explored an urban digital-twin approach that puts measurable street conditions alongside people’s own assessments. This can reveal a section that earns a good technical score but still feels unsafe or unpleasant to the people using it every day.
One case is a roughly 7.5-kilometre shared walking and cycling path between Eskilstuna and Torshälla in Sweden. It is well maintained, and a cyclist can reach Eskilstuna railway station from Torshälla in about 25–30 minutes. Even so, local work identified scope to improve some crossings and add services along the route. A survey of residents helped compare what infrastructure data records with what cyclists actually experience.
The project did not produce an app that municipalities can simply download. Its output is a framework for making better decisions. In discussions with more than 20 planning practitioners, cost, political will and incomplete data proved as important as software. A digital model cannot solve those problems by itself, but it can show more clearly where a site visit is needed and where spending could make the biggest difference to riders.