How can a city test an event plan before people arrive?
For event organisers and city teams, that question involves many connected decisions. Where should entrances be placed? How might queues affect nearby walkways? Can response teams reach an incident when the square is busy? What happens if only one exit remains available?
At BizzTech, we are exploring these questions through Freedom Square in Poznań, the first showcase for UrbanOps Twin, our browser-based urban digital twin application.
The showcase brings the venue, event layout and simulated visitor movement into one environment. It gives event organisers, municipal teams and safety planners a concrete visual setting in which to examine assumptions and discuss changes before putting a plan into practice.
Exploring how an event might unfold
An event layout shapes how people enter, move through and leave a public space. The position of an entrance, the arrangement of event areas and the timing of activities can all influence where visitors gather.
Freedom Square allows teams to explore scenarios based on different assumptions about visitor numbers, entrances and schedules. They can observe simulated movement and queues, identify areas that deserve closer attention and consider what to change in the next scenario.
This creates a practical starting point for discussion. Where do routes converge? Which walkways could become difficult to use? How might a different arrangement affect movement through the square?
The value lies in the process: examine a scenario, question the assumptions, adjust the plan and compare another version.
Preparing for disrupted conditions
The demonstration also explores medical incidents, fires and evacuation scenarios, including an example in which only one exit is available.
These scenarios bring additional planning questions into view. Where should response teams be positioned? Which access routes need attention? How does simulated visitor movement change when an exit becomes unavailable?
By reviewing these situations in the context of the venue, teams can discuss the relationship between event layout, response access and crowd movement. Browser access provides a common visual reference for stakeholders with different responsibilities, helping them work through the same scenario together.
The current showcase uses simulated crowds and illustrative external data. Crowd behaviour has not been calibrated against measured crowd data, so the simulations support exploratory scenario comparison rather than precise predictions of real-world behaviour. They provide a basis for discussing the data, validation and integrations needed for operational use.
From Freedom Square to a city’s own application
Freedom Square is the first showcase. Tookeo provides the underlying platform and software tools for developing, deploying and managing applications.
With Tookeo, municipal technical teams or implementation partners can develop their own digital twin applications around local requirements. Freedom Square illustrates how those tools can be applied to a specific public space and a defined set of planning questions.
For a city considering this approach, the starting point can be a concrete operational challenge: reviewing an event layout, examining visitor routes or comparing alternative scenarios. That focus helps define what the application needs to support and which information it needs to bring together.
Event planning and operations are our starting point for UrbanOps Twin. Further planned application areas include mobility, safety, public-space operations, energy and the environment, and critical infrastructure.
As we prepare for Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona, we will share more examples from Freedom Square and the technology behind it. We welcome conversations with city teams and implementation partners exploring how this approach could apply to their own public spaces.