CITYNEXUS
Climate Resilient Urban Planning
CityNexus is an AI-powered platform that integrates mobility, environmental and socio-economic data to support data-driven urban planning. It simulates “what-if” scenarios using Earth Observation and mobility data to test sustainable mobility policies and urban transformations.
Overview
In the face of growing urban complexity, CITYNEXUS emerges as a powerful platform designed to help cities plan, test and implement sustainable policies for mobility, air quality and climate resilience.
Built on advanced AI, Earth Observation and mobility data, CITYNEXUS offers users an intelligent environment to test urban interventions before being implemented, quantifying impacts on traffic patterns and air quality to support data-driven policy making and urban planning.
The Urban Challenge
Cities today face an intricate web of interdependent issues:
- Traffic congestion and mobility inefficiencies: growing populations increase travel demand and emissions.
- Air pollution and climate targets: many cities struggle to meet EU emission reduction goals.
- Rising infrastructure costs: without predictive tools, investments risk being ineffective.
- Fragmented data ecosystems: inconsistent information limits holistic urban understanding.
- Traditional planning approaches, based on static and isolated datasets, no longer suffice.
CityNexus bridges these gaps through integrated data, advanced analytics and scenario-based simulations that reveal the real-world effects of planning decisions before they happen.
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A Digital Platform for Urban Intelligence
At its core, CityNexus is an AI-powered platform that combines mobility, environmental and socio-economic information to analyze and forecast the impact of policy and infrastructure changes.
It brings together diverse data sources and models, including:
- Earth Observation data (Sentinel-5P, ERA5, CORINE Land Cover)
- Mobility data collected from GNSS-enabled devices
- Regional and local models for air pollution and NO₂ concentration
- Flood risk models that assess the resilience of urban transport networks (CityNexus PRO)
By integrating these layers, CITYNEXUS enables decision-makers to explore how different interventions shape urban dynamics, from traffic patterns to air quality and climate adaptation.
Key functionalities
and innovation
CITYNEXUS stands out for its interactive and explainable approach to simulation and decision support. Among its key features:
- What-if Scenarios: Simulate policy options such as low-emission zones, road redesign, or customized means of transport.
- Air Quality Modelling: Estimate pollutant concentrations per street segment, including NO₂, CO and PMx.
- Flood-Mobility Integration (Citynexus Pro): Evaluate how flood events affect accessibility and traffic flow.
- Explainable AI (XAI): Understand the causes of environmental impacts and receive data-driven mitigation suggestions.
- Interactive Platform: Configure, visualize and compare scenarios via the web interface at https://platform.destine.eu/services/service/citynexus/
This modular design ensures flexibility, scalability and relevance for cities of any size.
Demonstration cities
To validate its approach, CITYNEXUS is being tested in four pilot cities, each representing a unique urban and climatic context:
- Aarhus (Denmark): championing digital innovation in urban sustainability
- Seville (Spain): tackling air quality and mobility challenges under warmer climates
- Bologna (Italy): integrating resilience and low-emission strategies in a dense urban fabric
- Copenhagen (Denmark): the original testbed, pioneering real-world policy simulations
These cities share a common vision: achieving climate neutrality through data, innovation and collaborative governance.
Data sources
CityNexus relies on a multi-layered modelling framework supported by diverse data inputs:
Scenario Simulation: “What-If” Urban Planning
CITYNEXUS allows users to configure and run customized simulations, exploring the impact of various interventions, including:
- Road speed adjustments: modify speed limits for selected street segments.
- Low Emission Zones (LEZs): restrict motorized circulation in specific areas.
- Road redesign and land use change: evaluate changes in land use and air quality by tunneling or setting streets underground.
- Active mobility promotion: increase the share of electric vehicles or cycling.
Each parameter can be modified interactively within the web interface at https://platform.destine.eu/services/service/citynexus/
As a component of the European Commission’s Destination Earth programme, CITYNEXUS contributes to the Digital Twin for Climate Adaptation and Urban Planning.
Its integration with other DestinE modules—such as IAM, Vault, and Dashboard, ensures interoperability, scalability and long-term operation within Europe’s evolving digital-twin ecosystem.
This alignment enhances Europe’s ability to simulate urban-environmental systems, inform climate-adaptation policies and connect science with decision-making.
Explore more use cases
- CITYNEXUS – Climate Resilient Urban Planning
- CITYNEXT: AI-Driven Insights for Sustainable Urban Growth and Climate Resilience
- SupR-NTL: Super-Resolution Nighttime Light for Sustainable Development
- Community-based cartography & EO for Urban Resilience
- BEE-AI: Building Energy Efficiency with Artificial Intelligence
- Mapping the impact of armed conflict through Earth Observation
- Community mapping with street-level photo survey and computer vision
- Urban Digital Twins: shaping the future of smart sustainable cities
- Data-driven fashion trends from mobile mapping + Artificial Intelligence
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