This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter.

“The reason we are doing this,” says Professor Phil Greening, co-director of a new hub that could help accelerate transport decarbonisation, “is that we have run out of runway to decarbonise using the traditional market forces. It’s not that they don’t work – they will work eventually. But we have run out of time.”

The question of whether the market can solve many of our net zero problems arises frequently around decarbonisation plans. It was there, for instance, earlier this year when I was looking at the market in short-duration lithium battery parks and the way National Grid ESO’s nature, as a neutral market facilitator may mean we are failing to design the best grid. It’s there around the issue of green finance, tree-planting and nature restoration. And it’s also there around decarbonisation of transport.

But often the question that is asked is, given the complexity of the systems, is there really a better answer?

The new national research hub, called TransiT and launched yesterday, presents a possible answer. The project, says a press release, will pioneer the use of computer models called digital twins in determining how transport systems, from road and rail to air and maritime, can be decarbonised as quickly, safely and cheaply as possible. In effect, it will allow virtual models to play out the kind of mistakes we don’t have the time for, and can’t afford to make.

It’s this that Prof Greening, a Heriot-Watt University logistics and computer modelling expert, emphasises when we chat. “We are doing this,” he says, “to leverage all the computer power and knowledge that we’ve got and compress it into a short space of time to give the best possible answer.

“We have to go with computer models which can simulate time much faster.  So we can start to look at what the world will look like in twenty years’ time, and it takes an hour or two for us to do that. The benefits for society of that is that we can experiment in the virtual world and it’s relatively risk free. You can do something and understand what the impact would be in the real world without any pain.”   

Read more:

Winds of Change | What we know so far about GB Energy – and why investment in Scotland is key

Transport represents a third of Scotland and the UK’s emissions, which must be reduced to meet net zero. It’s also a target that Scotland has repeatedly missed, and one of the biggest challenges.

The TransiT Hub will use  digital replicas of the physical world which collect data in real time by sensors connected to infrastructure such as roads, railways or shipping. That data will then be analysed to test and improve different scenarios, and the digital twin can then send back its solution for an improved process to the physical world in near real-time.

It’s an ambitious project that has Scottish universities, Heriot-Watt and the University of Glasgow, as its leads, and comes with a significant price tag: £46 million investment from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and 67 partners.

The project, which draws on a “critical mass” of digital twinning and complex adaptive systems modelling expertise in the UK, is set to be globally pioneering. Not only could the work help decarbonise UK transport but it could be of benefit to developing economies, who will need to build critical infrastructure and services.

But can this giant project, incorporating AI and machine learning, really provide those big answers? 


Not all of its ambitions are that grand. One example of how twins would work is that it could help motorists and reduce carbon emissions through updating digital road signs with information on the shortest route out of traffic jams. There are already digital twins in existence. The national air traffic control system, for instance, is an example of one, taking real-time data in from the world, and feeding instructions back to aircraft.

But this hub is not just about creating a few new digital twins. Its goal is to connect them, like a “Lego model”. “We call that a federated system of digital twins,” Prof Greening describes. “That’s important because it is scalable.” 

And as such it has a bigger, more revolutionary potential – that it could allow researchers to test how parts of a decarbonised transport system work that does not even exist yet – for example electric infrastructure and alternative fuels.   

It could also provide an answer to a bigger philosophical and ideological question around how we get to net zero. Can we afford to leave solving it to the market? And, if not the market, how do we solve such a complex question? 

Read more:

Heat pumps will slash bills in Scotland – but only with electricity reform

“Normally,” says Prof Greening, “what we would do is let the real world work it out for itself. The evolutionary approach. People come up with new innovations. They either work or they don’t. Gradually over time we find the position. But given the time we have that won’t work. If we had started the process 20 years ago then that traditional approach would have worked. But now we’ve only got 5-10 years left in order to design that future system.”

That need for urgency is echoed by Professor David Flynn, joint director of TransiT, and Head of Research Division for Autonomous Systems and Connectivity within the University of Glasgow.   

The programme, he says, aims to “equip our governments and key stakeholders with a new ability – in digital twinning – as to better understand the right future investments we need to make as to deliver the radical change our future transport system needs.”  

“Digital Twinning, when distributed – or as we call federated, could be more powerful than a crystal ball in terms of helping us to not just see or predict our future. But return to us the insights we need to shape a better future, through better informed decision making.”

A digital twin involves the building of a computer model that is a physical representation of a system in a virtual world, but then connecting it to real-time data, picked up through sensors in the world.

“The fundamental property of a digital twin,” says Prof Greening, “is that you put something out into the world and you get feedback from it. Social scientists would call that single loop learning. There’s also double loop elearning which we can also do where you don’t just learn from your own actions, you learn from the actions of others. You can observe the world. Digital twins are very powerful for that and at exposing best practice. Each digital twin does its own thing. Some digital twins do it better than others. All in a virtual world.”  

Sign up for the Winds of Change newsletter and get a weekly update on all things climate and energy.


Some of this sounds familiar. We see it all the time in nature. As Prof Flynn puts it: "Digital Twinning, in some ways can return a more symbiotic balance – similar to the symbiotic relationships you see in nature. It can couple social (people and behaviours) to technology, economic and environmental factors. Reconnecting people, place and planet, so that we can establish a mutually beneficial balance."  

What is also interesting is the range of outcomes and factors the programme will look at: not only carbon and costs, but also socioeconomic factors.  “How do we make sure,” asks Professor Flynn, “that we are designing for equity in these prosperous, sustainable futures we keep talking about? That’s something digital twinning can help us address.”

There is even a “human behaviour team”, as part of the consortium because, points out Prof Greening, “people’s behaviour will have to change as we move to  net zero solutions”. 

Digital twins bring their own questions around data use and ownership – but their potential is clear, and this is a hopeful project. That net zero runway is getting shorter by the day. Given that, could AI be our new climate best friend?