Unlocking the End-to-End Potential of the Lightweight Digital Twin

By now most of the infrastructure industry has heard of digital twins—the hype, the trough, and the many definitions of what a digital twin is.

While complex, digital twins have underpinned aerospace and manufacturing industries for years, their place in traditional transportation and infrastructure space has been slow to evolve. In many cases, the promise of digital twins has been negated by poorly managed data or expensive software packages causing many to cringe at the mere mention.

That’s begun to change with the emergence of light digital twins. A light digital twin is one constructed from readily available imagery such as 2D drawings, GIS data, LiDAR or other data sources. The new bridge under development across Biscayne Bay in Miami-Dade County in South Florida reflects this technology shift.

An Agile Adaptation

The current Broad Causeway Bridge spans Biscayne Bay and the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW) and has connected the community of Bay Harbor Islands to the mainland and City of North Miami for 73 years. This aging ICWW bridge sees around 23,000 vehicles per day and, after many years of service, requires extensive and costly maintenance. Furthermore, the original design standards do not meet the current minimum threshold requirements for pedestrian safety and mobility, which has resulted in numerous crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists.

For the Broad Causeway Bridge, our team of subject matter experts, 3D modelers and metaverse developers worked with architects and engineers to develop a live digital twin for the project in a gaming engine powered by mixed reality (AR and VR). Very early in the discovery stage the team identified and sourced low-level models of meshed LiDAR point clouds gathered from the project location. That meshed LiDAR data was used along with freshly acquired drone footage to anchor the 3D models for that location.

With this virtual model, stakeholders and the public can see the proposed bridges from every angle and understand both how it might look on an average day, how it might impact other parts of the community, and why certain design concepts are imperative. One major change between the old bridge and the two proposed conceptual design options was the creation of a dedicated walkway for pedestrians and bicyclists with barriers that protect users from vehicular traffic. With the lightweight twin, the design team improved public engagement by allowing the public to virtually experience the existing narrow walkway with the traffic rushing past – and how it compared to the proposed changes, which are Americans with Disabilities Act compliant.

This ‘live’ digital twin created increased community support for the change and generated real excitement for the project. The Broad Causeway Bridge is currently completing the environmental clearance phase and has strong support from the community and stakeholders. Further, this same lightweight digital twin has continued to evolve and was further leveraged internally to entertain options for construction phasing and staging to maintain movement of vehicular traffic, bicyclists, and pedestrians during construction.

The Clear ROI

The use of the light digital twin concept on the Broad Causeway Bridge helped spread the cost of developing a twin environment across multiple dedicated tasks and phases thus enabling quick task resolution solutions.

The reliance on gaming engines and mixed reality is a game-changer for our industry. The outcome of these simulations provides the team with powerful insights for decision making processes on the go, enabling better engagement by constituents and stakeholders and reducing the negative feedback loop that clients and stakeholders often experience with their constituents during the inception phases of a construction project.

A Smarter Future with Light Digital Twins

The success of the Broad Causeway Bridge project underscores a crucial shift: digital twins are no longer just futuristic concepts or costly burdens. The lightweight digital twin approach proves that with the right data, agile technology, and strategic implementation, these tools can drive better design decisions, enhance public engagement and streamline project execution.

As infrastructure projects grow more complex, the ability to visualize, simulate and adapt in real time will become an industry standard—not a luxury. Those who embrace light digital twins today are setting the foundation for smarter, more efficient, and more connected infrastructure tomorrow.

The future isn’t just digital—it’s lightweight, adaptive and ready to transform the way we build.

A version of this article was originally published in the March-April issue of Transportation Builder, the magazine for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).