The launch was announced by Executive Vice-President Virkkunen during the first international forum for the European Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Alliance (ECAVA), hosted in Brussels.
As a mobility flagship of the Apply AI Strategy, ADACities will allow selected EU cities to become real-world leaders in the deployment of autonomous mobility innovation, including robo-taxis and car-sharing, autonomous shuttles supporting multimodal urban mobility and advanced self-driving cars. Partnerships supported by the initiative must be EU-centric, with European OEMs and tech at the core, without excluding international collaboration. By 2030, participating cities in ADACities will target fleets of 100 or more autonomous vehicles.
Autonomous driving technologies have significant potential to enhance both EU industrial competitiveness and urban mobility. However, Europe continues to lag behind global competitors in their roll out. For the EU automotive industry, the initiative aims to help make autonomous driving in cities a scalable and profitable business case. For citizens, this means safer roads, cleaner air and more convenient mobility, with improved first and last-mile connections, including peri-urban areas. For cities, it means more efficient public transport, better traffic management and the ability to optimise mobility networks through AI-enabled solutions.
The deployment of autonomous driving in European cities aligns closely with the objectives of the EU Technological Sovereignty Package, drawing on Europe's capabilities in semiconductors, sovereign cloud and data infrastructure, AI Factories and open-source technologies to support the development of competitive and trustworthy European AI-powered mobility solutions.
ADACities builds on the Joint declaration of intent concerning the creation of a cross-border testbed for the deployment of automated vehicles.
Contribute to the ADACities call for expression of interest and read the underlying scoping paper.
Discover ADACities and how to contribute to the call for expression of interest at the Online information session on 25 June 2026 (10:00–13:00 CET).
You can also find more information in the dedicated ADACities factsheet. For questions on ADACities, please get in touch with us.