A Digital Twin-Based Methodology for Identifying Heavy Rainfall Hazard Locations on Motorways.
Tauchhammer, M ; Pretscher, W. ; Eberwein, A. ; Schuster, M. ; Rehrl, K. ; Kann, A. (2026): A Digital Twin-Based Methodology for Identifying Heavy Rainfall Hazard Locations on Motorways. In: AGIT Conference, Jg. 2 (2026) H. 1. Shaping Geospatial Futures, Jahrgang 2 (2026), Heft 1, Seite 129-133, 5 Seiten.
Heavy rainfall events increasingly challenge the safety and operational reliability of high-level road infrastructure due to climate change. On motorways with high driving speeds, local water accumulation, aquaplaning and unexpected surface flow paths may lead to safety-critical situations. Existing assessment approaches often focus primarily on rainfall acting directly on the road surface and neglect interactions with the surrounding terrain, resulting in an incomplete identification of locally confined hazard locations. The project developed and applied a robust and transferable methodology for detecting and assessing heavy rainfall hazard locations on motorway infrastructure. The approach is based on the creation of a high-resolution digital twin of both the road infrastructure and the relevant surrounding area. This digital twin serves as the geometric and semantic foundation for coupled hydrological-hydraulic simulations considering rainfall on the road surface as well as inflows and outflows from adjacent terrain. The results demonstrate that critical hazard locations are largely determined by the interaction between rainfall intensity, road geometry, drainage systems and terrain-driven inflows. The study further shows that simulationbased hazard information can be aggregated into section-based risk zones and integrated into existing communication standards such as C-ITS and DATEX II. The project thus provides a scalable methodological framework for strengthening infrastructure resilience and traffic safety under increasing extreme weather conditions, especially for motorway sections embedded within surrounding terrain where external runoff contributions may significantly influence surface water accumulation.
