Predicting and avoiding road crashes based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data
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Funding Description
Key Facts
| Item | Detail |
|------|--------|
| Programme / Cluster | Horizon Europe – Cluster 5 (Climate, Energy & Mobility) |
| Call Identifier | HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D6-14 |
| Action Type / MGA | Research & Innovation Action (HORIZON-RIA) – Lump-Sum Grant |
| Planned opening / deadline | 16 Sep 2025 → 20 Jan 2026 (17:00 CET, single stage) |
| Indicative EU contribution per project | €7–10 million (max. €30 million per grant) |
| Technology Readiness Level at start / end | TRL 3-4 → TRL 6 (typical for RIA) |
| Project duration (recommended) | 36–48 months |
What the Grant Funds
* Development and demonstration of an AI-enabled digital twin of road traffic & infrastructure.
* Big-data acquisition pipelines integrating multisource, multimodal, real-time information (sensors, C-ITS, crowdsourcing, drones, environmental & socio-economic data, etc.).
* Predictive algorithms and surrogate safety metrics for crash-risk estimation at quantifiable levels.
* Prototypes of real-time countermeasures (decision-support dashboards, in-vehicle/haptic warnings, adaptive traffic management).
* Technical & non-technical enablers: FAIR data governance, ethics-by-design, bias mitigation, interoperability standards, legal & policy recommendations.
* Pilots / living labs validating risk prediction and interventions in at least two distinct EU regions and covering diverse road user groups.
Eligible Applicants
* Any legal entity from EU Member States or Horizon Europe Associated Countries: universities, research organisations, SMEs, large industry, road authorities, cities/regions, NGOs, ITS providers.
* Minimum consortium: 3 independent entities from 3 different eligible countries (standard Horizon Europe rule). Multistakeholder partnerships (authorities, tech providers, data owners, civil society) are strongly encouraged.
* International partners (US, Japan, Singapore, Australia) may participate without EU funding or with funding if they are from an Associated Country or have a bilateral funding arrangement.
Funding Model – Lump Sum Specifics
* The entire project budget is pre-agreed as a single lump sum; payments are linked to the successful completion of work packages/ milestones rather than real cost reporting.
* No ex-post financial auditing of costs, but technical achievements must be evidenced.
* Budget must still be realistic: personnel, equipment, subcontracting, open-science costs, IPR, travel, dissemination, ethics, data management.
Co-funding & Synergies
* Combine with national / regional road-safety investments, CEF Transport, Digital Europe data-space actions, or ERDF mobility strategies.
* Use cascade-funding or open-call mechanisms to onboard start-ups or cities for pilot extensions (allowed under lump-sum rules if foreseen).
📊 At a Glance
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🇪🇺 Strategic Advantages
EU-Wide Advantages and Opportunities for HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D6-14
1. Strategic Alignment with EU Goals
• Vision Zero & EU Road Safety Policy (2021-2030) – The project directly supports the EU’s target to halve road deaths by 2030 and reach near-zero fatalities by 2050 through the Safe System Approach.
• European Data Strategy & AI Act – Creates a high-value mobility data space and showcases trustworthy, bias-free AI, feeding policymaker evidence ahead of the final AI Act implementation.
• Green Deal & Fit-for-55 – Smoother traffic flows reduce congestion, CO₂ and pollutant emissions, complementing sustainable mobility packages.
2. Pan-European Data & Digital Infrastructure Benefits
• Critical Mass of Heterogeneous Data – Pooling data across 27+ Member States (MS) yields unparalleled diversity in road types, climate, driving behaviour and vehicle fleets, boosting AI model robustness and transferability.
• Cross-border Digital Twin – A Europe-scale digital twin enables seamless TEN-T corridor monitoring and management of cross-border traffic, something unachievable by single-country initiatives.
• Synergy with Existing EU Assets
• Galileo/EGNOS for high-precision positioning.
• C-ITS corridors funded under CEF for real-time communication.
• Common European Mobility Data Space & GAIA-X federated architecture to ensure FAIR, GDPR-compliant sharing.
3. Market Creation & Industrial Competitiveness
• First-Mover Advantage for EU Suppliers – Harmonised AI-enabled safety services create a single market of 450 million consumers, incentivising EU OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers and SME deep-tech firms to industrialise solutions.
• Economies of Scale – Common specifications and joint procurement by road authorities lower unit costs of sensors, edge devices and cloud services.
• Export Potential – A validated, EU-wide reference architecture becomes an international benchmark, strengthening EU leadership in safety-critical ITS.
4. Societal, Ethical & Cohesion Gains
• Bias-Checked AI for All Road Users – Diverse EU datasets (urban/rural; North/South; vulnerable road users) minimise algorithmic bias, ensuring equitable safety benefits EU-wide.
• Citizen Trust through GDPR-by-Design – EU privacy safeguards and ethical oversight build public acceptance, a pre-condition for large-scale data donation from smartphones, wearables and vehicles.
• Territorial Cohesion – Less-resourced MS gain access to advanced predictive tools without duplicating R&D costs, supporting cohesion policy goals.
5. Research, Testing & Deployment Opportunities
• Multi-Site Pilots – Selecting heterogeneous pilot sites (Nordic winter roads, Alpine tunnels, Mediterranean urban areas, cross-border freight corridors) validates scalability and generalisability.
• Living Labs & City Mission Synergy – Link with Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission cities to embed real-time crash prediction in broader urban digital twins.
• Leverage Prior EU Projects – Build upon OMICRON, SAFESTRIP, HEADSTART, SafetyCube, Data4Safety (aviation) and upcoming CCAM cluster results to accelerate TRL advancement.
6. Standardisation & Regulatory Impact
• Pan-EU Interoperability Standards – Early engagement with CEN, ETSI, ISO TC 204 and UNECE WP.29 ensures that data models, safety KPIs and V2X messages become de-facto European norms.
• Evidence for Directive Revisions – Outputs can feed into updates of the Intelligent Transport Systems Directive, Road Infrastructure Safety Management Directive and GDPR codes of practice for mobility data.
7. Funding & Policy Leverage
• Blending with CEF, Cohesion & REACT-EU Funds – Pilot infrastructure upgrades (road-side units, edge AI) can be co-financed, accelerating deployment.
• EIB/InvestEU De-Risking – Project results provide the risk assessment evidence investors need for large-scale rollout of AI-driven safety services.
• Synergy with EU Partnerships – Alignment with CCAM, Zero-Emission Road Transport (2Zero) and AI, Data & Robotics Partnership maximises knowledge transfer and amplifies political visibility.
8. International Cooperation Gateway
• Strategic Reciprocity – Coordinated research with US, Japan, Singapore, Australia strengthens EU negotiating power in global safety data standards and positions European industry in high-value export markets.
9. Long-Term Sustainability & Legacy
• European Centre of Excellence for Predictive Road Safety – The consortium can morph into a permanent EU platform maintaining the digital twin, curating pan-EU datasets and providing certification services.
• Open Science & Skills – FAIR data, open-source reference algorithms and European MOOCs foster a new generation of AI safety engineers, addressing the skills shortage EU-wide.
🏷️ Keywords
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