City centre is cloned online to aid council and firms

A VIRTUAL “clone” of Bradford city centre has been created and could help deal with issues from traffic management to planning.

Virtual Bradford will create a “brick for brick” high-resolution copy of the city centre, with potential to expand the area in the future.

The project will be unveiled at the UNIfy Festival, in Bradford, today.

The project is a collaboration between the University of Bradford and Bradford Council and is part of an European Union-funded project, which aims to improve public service through smart open-data solutions.

Designers behind the scheme say Virtual Bradford will revolutionise how the council deals with planning, air pollution and traffic management and could lead to other potential benefits, such as the creation of heritage trails and three-dimensional mapping of cultural assets.

Businesses could open virtual shops, allowing customers to browse virtual aisles, while artists could install virtual exhibitions.

The online clone will include most of the city centre, but the virtual landscape will be expanded in future.

Professor Andrew Wilson, from the University of Bradford’s School of Archaeology and Forensic Sciences, said: “The benefit of ‘Virtual Bradford’ will be to support various strategic priorities for the council.

“These include urban civic planning, improve traffic management, support the modelling of air quality, flood risk and noise pollution, and to highlight the heritage of the city and its benefit to enhancing education, tourism and in fostering civic pride.”

The UNIfy Festival will be held online from today via www.bradford.ac.uk/events/unify.