Which neighbourhood is most vulnerable during a prolonged power outage, which buildings can be used during a flood and where is help needed first in a crisis? The City of Tilburg now answers these questions with data. Together with the municipality, Argaleo is building a digital foundation for the full urban resilience challenge on the Digitwin platform. The first concrete application is the emergency support point scan, and interest now ranges from other cities in Brabant to the largest cities in the country and the ministry.
One digital twin for the entire resilience challenge
The urban resilience challenge is broad: knowing your vulnerable neighbourhoods, making choices about facilities, calculating scenarios in advance and keeping an up-to-date picture during a crisis. Digitwin covers that entire chain from a single environment. Hundreds of data sources come together, from building characteristics, accessibility and energy supply to age distribution, self-reliance and flood risk.
The structure is layered: the combined data produces thematic scores and quick scans that objectively support administrative decisions, and on top of that run more complex analyses and simulations, such as evacuation models and scenarios for prolonged utility outages. The municipality decides how much weight each theme carries, and everyone in the chain works from the same picture.
Jeroen Steenbakkers (Argaleo) and Remy van der Hoek (City of Tilburg)
Emergency support point scan: from a thousand buildings to nine promising locations
The first application was developed within the national Emergency Support Points pilot, in which almost seventy municipalities from all 25 safety regions are investigating where residents can go when power and telecom fail for a prolonged period. The scan assessed around a thousand buildings in Tilburg on roughly two hundred characteristics, from ground floor area and structural condition to accessibility and environmental risks, and delivered a substantiated shortlist of nine locations.
Each prospective location is followed by an area analysis of the first five thousand residents: who lives there, where vulnerable groups are located and what that means for layout and communication. Around one of the prospective locations, for example, almost a quarter of residents turned out to be over 65, with care facilities concentrated close to the building.
‘Tilburg is leading the way in this national pilot because we believe crisis preparedness should rest on data and facts rather than assumptions. With the digital tool we are developing together with Argaleo, we are laying a foundation that other municipalities can build on as well.’
Remy van der Hoek, resilience lead, City of Tilburg
Overview of candidate emergency support points in Brabant
Proven platform, Dutch technology
Digitwin is the most widely used digital twin platform for Dutch government. Dozens of public organisations work with it daily, from large municipalities and safety regions to Rijkswaterstaat, and the platform proved itself at national scale during events such as the Vuelta and King’s Day. At the end of 2025, Argaleo launched a national evacuation tool together with safety regions from Zeeland to Fryslân.
The platform is fully proprietary technology, without dependence on non-European cloud or software. Digital sovereignty matters especially for resilience: the data stays in the Netherlands and the tooling remains available, even under difficult circumstances.
‘The system never gives the answer, but provides the tools to get there quickly. Because the municipality, safety region and other partners are literally looking at the same picture, you answer questions together. That is how we move from subjective to objective.’
Jeroen Steenbakkers, director of Argaleo
3D analysis: walking distances around candidate emergency support points in Tilburg
Scaling up together
In June, the approach was presented to the other large cities in Brabant, the province and the three Brabant safety regions; almost all municipalities present indicated they want to use the approach. Talks are underway with national organisations and the ministry about scaling up nationally, and the largest cities in the country have also shown interest. In 2027, Tilburg will roll out the approach further across the city and surrounding villages. The same method is ready for evacuation routes, emergency service accessibility and vulnerable neighbourhoods.
Curious what the resilience scan could mean for your municipality or safety region?
Book an online demo, get in touch, or first explore our approach to urban resilience.
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Together with the City of Tilburg, Argaleo is building a digital foundation for the full urban resilience challenge on the Digitwin platform. The first application: the emergency support point scan.
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