The municipality of Alkmaar has been working on a digital replica of the city since 2018. Since 2025, Clappform has been part of the scrum team helping to build the future of this Digital Twin as part of the Network of Local Digital Twins (NLDT). What started as a simple 3D map has evolved into a platform where data, technology, and participation converge.
All information linked to a location is brought together on a single interactive map, from city level down to street level. The platform operates with three layers of information, thereby serving multiple target groups: basic statistics for the general public, scenarios for the council and policymakers, and expert analyses for specialists.
Basic registers and municipal sources
3D city model and geodata layers
Quality of life models from Dutch government
Satellite image analysis for parking pressure
Hydrological model results for water storage
Noise measurements from municipal and citizen-operated sensors
Traffic and mobility data from external sources
Data for the planning of district heating networks
Key figures on residents, jobs and safety
The challenge
In urban area transformations, housing development, mobility, energy, green spaces, and water converge in the same location, while grid congestion, climate adaptation, and affordability put pressure on the spatial domain. The required data is usually available but is scattered across departments, reports, and organisations. Consequently, decisions are made too late and with insufficient coherence, based on static documents rather than calculated scenarios.
Our solution
The Digital Twin is structured as a data platform with a 3D viewer: a geo-tool in which data layers can be enabled, disabled, and combined, a data platform that brings together static sources and model outcomes, and a calculation and scenario layer that calculates and directly visualises variants.
What makes it unique is the linking of liveability models from the central government to the physical data layers, the Liveability Module to which Clappform has contributed. This allows the social domain to be calculated in the same way as the physical domain. By using open standards such as OGC and Common Ground, components and data layers remain reusable for other municipalities and regions.
Within the Digital Twin, users can, among other things:
calculate and visualise scenarios, such as water storage during heavy rainfall;
monitor parking pressure based on satellite imagery;
plan heat networks based on real-time data from various sources;
predict and simulate the impact of policy choices on liveability;
perform analyses at street level, for example of noise peaks;
incorporate data from residents and partners, such as measurements from citizen sensors.
This creates a shared understanding of the facts, allows trade-offs to be made earlier in the process, and increases ownership among residents. In Alkmaar, a citizen measurement of noise pollution led directly to an adjustment by a business owner, without the municipality's intervention. A Digital Twin is therefore not an end in itself, but a means to address complex challenges in an integrated and participatory manner.
Information
Would you like to know more about the digital twin community? Please contact Digital Twin Netherlands or Geonovum.
And if you want to learn more about the Digital Twin of the Municipality of Alkmaar, please click on the link below:
Start today
How we assist municipalities with their data challenges
Within a municipality, various themes are at play: from housing and livability to sustainability, safety, and the social domain. These domains directly pertain to area development and require up-to-date, reliable data.
Whether it involves resource allocation, prioritizing policy interventions, or monitoring neighborhood developments, real-time insights help municipalities steer sharply, make well-founded decisions, and respond flexibly to change.
Clappform provides municipalities with a platform that translates complex data into clear, actionable insights. Through direct connections with data sources and thematic dashboards, the information seamlessly aligns with policy-related questions.
