Integrating Human Driving Behaviour for CCAM systems validation
8th October 2025 at 11:44 am
The Horizon Europe call HORIZON-CL5-2026-01-D6-04 invites consortia to develop validated human driving behaviour models to ensure safe, predictable and trustworthy systems that align with the Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility (CCAM) Partnership and its Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. In mixed traffic, automated vehicles must interact seamlessly with human drivers, pedestrians and two-wheelers. Realistic representation of driver behaviour is essential for model calibration, parameterisation and regulatory validation, supporting both industrial deployment and public trust. Researchers have until 20 January 2026 to submit their proposals, hence the importance of starting to align your project ideas now.
Key Expectations for your Proposal
The European Commission expects proposals to achieve:
- Validated human behavioural models for safety-critical scenarios, used to define assessment criteria for type approval, consumer testing and system design.
- Virtual validation of CCAM systems using these models to realistically simulate human responses in closed-loop mixed traffic.
- Robust calibration and parameterisation across diverse conditions, including countries, infrastructure, traffic, vehicle types, demographics and human behavioural variability.
Pro tip: Emphasise the realism and diversity of your behavioural data. Show how your models capture variations in driver behaviour under different road, traffic and demographic conditions to demonstrate robustness and practical applicability.
Integrating Human Behaviour into CCAM
Proposals should integrate outputs from projects like i4Driving and BERTHA, extending their models to cover multiple safety-critical scenarios. Applications include:
- Virtual simulations for CCAM system validation.
- Parameterisation using real-world data from simulators and on-road monitoring.
- Integration with federated data platforms (HORIZON-CL5-2025-D6-06) for sharing and reuse across projects.
Pro tip: Include social science and human factors insights. Address gender, age, socio-economic status and cultural context to improve CCAM systems’ safety and social acceptance.
Strategic Importance
Accurate human driving models are crucial for public trust, regulatory approval and adoption of automated vehicles. Proposals should align with the CCAM Partnership objectives, EU-CEM methodology and complementary projects like HEADSTART, SUNRISE and SYNERGIES. International cooperation is encouraged to validate models in diverse traffic environments.
Pro tip: Highlight how your models support both industrial deployment and regulatory compliance, bridging research with real-world CCAM applications.
Looking for proposal writing support?
We at accelopment have experience supporting Horizon Europe mobility proposals, including the ongoing ROADVIEW project. Our expertise in proposal writing, project management as well as communication and dissemination ensures your submission meets CCAM Partnership expectations.
Contact our Horizon Europe experts to discuss how we can help you prepare a competitive proposal, from concept development to successful project implementation.
Dr. Johannes Ripperger
Research & Innovation Manager
Andreia Cruz
Research & Innovation Project Manager