The overall goal of this call is to leverage the needed private investment in order to establish a full pan-European road and railway network of 5G corridors by the end of the CEF programme (2027).
More specifically, the objective is to fund the first larger wave of deployment projects deriving from inception studies co-funded in the first call (CEF-DIG-2021-5GCORRIDORS-STUDIES) or building on other types of studies or based on results generated by on-going R&I 5G cross-border corridor trial projects conducted across the EU under Horizon 2020.
Projects funded under this call are expected to:
- Deploy 5G systems along transport paths for enabling the development of Connected and Automated Mobility, including automated rail and waterway operations, with the overall view to contribute to the green and digital transition of the EU.
- Reaching uninterrupted coverage meeting service requirements for Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and Future Railway Mobile Communications Systems FRMCS), River Information Systems (RIS) and also for multi-service/multi-application 5G services along European transport paths, including high-value commercial services (e.g. infotainment, mobile office).
- The focus is on providing such connectivity along key European transport paths including, but not limited to, the indicative list of 5G corridors in part V of the Annex to the CEF Regulation. In this sense, projects may encompass roads, rail, and inland waterways, and if appropriate in multimodal combination with other modes of transport (including for example use cases for smart logistics in multimodal logistic platforms and ports, etc).
The priority of this call will be to support investment in cross-border sections of a Member State with one or more Member States or associated countries with higher funding rate (see section 10 of the call text).