The Ukrainian government has selected Egis, Dassault Systèmes and B4 to use digital-twin technology to help rebuild its cities damaged during the Russian invasion.

The consortium will mobilise their expertise and experience in 3D virtual technologies, construction and engineering to reconstruct urban areas damaged as a result of the war.

A two-phased project approach involves a collaborative reconstruction cost analysis and a master planning exercise in Chernihiv Oblast and the city of Chernihiv. Digital-twin technology is at the core of the collaborative project to optimise city infrastructure, resources, sustainability and quality of life for inhabitants.

The project is supported by the French government with a grant from the French treasury.

The project will combine Dassault Systèmes’ 3DExperience platform and Egis’ and B4’s construction engineering expertise, in a two-phase approach: a damage assessment and reconstruction cost analysis in the Chernihiv Oblast, followed by a strategic master planning for reconstruction in the city of Chernihiv.

“Despite the ongoing invasion, Ukraine’s local authorities are already thinking about the future and planning how to rebuild their cities,” said Karim Bensiam, associate manager at B4. “They also intend to share their plans with the local population. Our collaborative efforts and our expertise in engineering and construction fully support this mission to rebuild Ukraine as soon as possible and make its urban areas better than they were before.”

The first phase will consist of diagnosing the damages in the Oblast, to forecast the reconstruction costs and define which infrastructures to rebuild first. The 3DExperience platform will support the collaboration and host all the information and analysis gathered by Egis and B4 experts. Satellite data analysis will automatically detect and highlight impacted areas and will be cross-checked by inspections in the field to validate the calculations and the prioritisation strategy.

The second phase will involve building a virtual twin of the city of Chernihiv on the 3DExperience platform. It will focus on optimising how the city will be rebuilt including the design of new buildings and the organisation of city transportation, infrastructure and other services. Stakeholders from diverse sectors will use the virtual twin to test collaboratively different scenarios involving parameters such as flooding risks, accessibility, transportation, land use, position of key urban assets, and existing water, heat, sewage and other infrastructure networks.

In parallel, they will source information from existing documents and city departments to ensure the needs and expectations of inhabitants in each neighbourhood, the vision of elected officials, and economic and social development challenges are all taken into account.

Throughout the project, all information collected will be fed into the virtual twin of the city to enable the partners to build the city master plan collaboratively.

“Egis has been operating in Ukraine since 1993, working on a variety of private and government funded projects across various sectors such as civil engineering, road and bridge construction, water, urban transport; ports and waterways and energy,” said Laurent Germain, CEO of Egis. “Today we run 23 projects in Ukraine that aim to rebuild cities and infrastructure. So the rebuilding of Chernihiv Oblast and the city of Chernihiv will be one more opportunity to bring the company’s global experience to the country such as low carbon and bioclimatic city design, cycle-friendly cities, better public transport and carpooling infrastructure, designing safe, green and hospitable public spaces, and other Egis key design principles for smart, sustainable cities.” Florence Verzelen, executive vice president at Dassault Systèmes, added: “We aim to help local authorities improve cities in Ukraine, and life within them, through this meaningful joint project that will have impacts over the long-term. Our 3DExperience platform plays an integral role in building more sustainable, resilient cities. Virtual twin experiences enriched with expert knowledge, know-how and data enable us to explore unlimited scenarios and optimise the ones that will best answer the needs of the population, address climate change, upgrade plans for public transportation, smart services and utilities.”