Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities (IA) - Apply AI

Expected Outcome:

Development and demonstration of AI-enabled electric autonomous mobility services (level 4) in urban traffic, improving safety, sustainability, data sharing and commercial scalability across cities, through a large-scale demonstrator integrating 5 - 7 co-ordinated city pilots in 5 or more Member States or associated countries including at least one cross-border pilot between adjacent cities - to bring near-to-market autonomous driving technologies into real operations:

1. Delivery on the Apply AI Strategy flagship action “Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities” by bridging the gap between high technical maturity and sustainable commercial deployment in cities.
2. Strengthened competitiveness of European base vehicle manufacturers, AD technology stack providers, mobility service brokers, and mobility service operators through real-world deployment opportunities as addressed by the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA), in particular its working group on Autonomous Driving deployment.
3. Safer, more sustainable and accessible urban mobility through the integration of electric autonomous vehicles.
4. Demonstration of scalable autonomous mobility services and vehicles in real-traffic urban environments using mature autonomous driving technologies.
5. Improved access to and secure sharing of data as well as AI models and tools to support the development, testing, validation and safe operation of autonomous driving systems.
6. Demonstration of a scalable, future-proof supporting infrastructure capable of delivering all required services, ensuring operational continuity, safety, and the seamless scalability of autonomous mobility deployments.
7. Address regulatory, operational and governance barriers to the deployment and scaling of autonomous mobility services, by supporting procurement frameworks, and capacity building within cities, as well as the harmonisation of deployment conditions and requirements, including the security and robustness of such services, as well as the identification of viable business models and replication pathways across the EU.

Scope:

• Support cities or urban agglomerations (from countries who have signed or plan to sign the “Joint Declaration of Intent concerning the creation of a cross-border testbed for the deployment of autonomous vehicles” or can demonstrate a comparable level of technological, operational and regulatory readiness) partnering with mobility service provider(s) and operator(s), vehicle manufacturers and suppliers, technology providers, R&I entities and public transport operators (as needed and appropriate), to deploy AI-enabled electric autonomous vehicles, with automation capabilities at level 4 (SAE), to enable autonomous driving operations, such as autonomous shuttle services, ride-hailing, car sharing and autonomous point to point navigation. Facilitate the sharing of knowledge, best practices, and recommendations among participating cities, industry, and with wider EU stakeholders.
• With a strong focus of proposals on providing pan-European added value through the exploitation of synergies, co-ordination, supply and demand-side aggregation, standard-setting, and sharing of data, AI models, and experiences across participating cities and industrial actors, it is expected that proposals build as far as possible on on-going actions at European, national, or regional level, and that complementary public funding and industrial investments are sought to support the actual deployment of autonomous vehicles and the roll-out of related mobility services at scale.
• Prepare integration, operations and deployment of autonomous vehicles in 5-7 European city pilots in 5 or more Member States or associated countries, including prototyping equipment (vehicle, software, hardware), integration of vehicles in the transport infrastructure and mobility system, performing initial demonstrations in real-life traffic, and developing scaling and financing roadmaps. These pilots should:
  • Include at least one cross-border city pilot between adjacent cities or urban agglomerations to demonstrate interoperability across different national regulations and physical and digital infrastructures, thereby providing evidence-based recommendations for large-scale deployment and regulatory alignment in Europe.
  • Support mandatory sharing of data, AI models and experiences across all pilots through a scheme to be agreed by the involved players e.g. through a European neutral, secure and trusted data handling entity or an organisation of similar profile. This sharing approach shall define, among others, the requirements for interoperable digital infrastructures and federated data-sharing and AI training frameworks, including the role of the infrastructure to augment vehicle perception in complex urban scenarios, that safeguard the interests of the industrial participants and enable safe, robust, and cybersecure-by-design operation of autonomous systems, robust cybersecurity and interoperability requirements for data and model sharing.
  • Take into account the regulatory simplification work on-going in the Action on “Large scale testbeds for autonomous driving” under the Industrial Action Plan for the European automotive sector of March 2025 (“Joint Declaration of Intent concerning the creation of a cross-border testbed for the deployment of automated vehicles” by many Member States) and provide guidance on interoperability and scaling of autonomous driving technologies, from pilot environments to large-scale urban operations in real traffic, addressing operational safety and security, regulatory approvals, certification procedures, procurement approaches and infrastructure integration (e.g. connectivity, data governance, charging infrastructure).

Proposers are expected to comply with the strategic objectives of the EU AI-, Data- and cybersecurity related policy objectives (including for Connected and Automated Vehicles). Consortia will closely interact with the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA), in particular its working group on Autonomous Driving deployment. Consortia will further need to demonstrate close interaction and complementarity with the activities of the CCAM partnership (in particular the SYNERGIES project and the CCAMbassador CSA, its work with cities, as well as the project resulting from HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D6-06: Federated CCAM data exchange platform and the Large Scale Demonstration running as of 2027 and stemming from the topic HORIZON-CL5-2026-10-D6-01: Flagship-pilot: large-scale demonstrations of CCAM). The projects should make use of the emerging European infrastructures of AI factories and data labs, CEF projects, the common European Mobility Data Space EMDS, the emerging European Digital Infrastructure Consortium on Mobility and Logistics, any relevant emerging pan-European initiatives like Important Projects of Common European Interest, etc. to capitalise on mature technologies with strong commercialisation potential.

It is expected that one large scale demonstrator project is selected, which includes 5 - 7 city pilots in 5 or more Member States or associated countries. Proposers are encouraged to select the cities for their city pilots from the Call for Expression of Interest launched on 23 June 2026 for the Autonomous Drive Ambition Cities (ADACities) Initiative under the European Apply AI strategy.

Projects resulting from this topic are expected to apply the European Common Evaluation Methodology (EU-CEM) for CCAM.

Technology Readiness Level - Technology readiness level expected from completed projects