metaCCAZE starts from a simple but ambitious premise: Europe will reach climate neutrality faster not only by designing smarter, cleaner mobility solutions, but by building a repeatable mechanism to move those solutions from one city to another. This is why the project distinguishes between Trailblazer Cities, where innovations are implemented and tested first, and Follower Cities, where they are adopted, adapted, and redeployed in a different local context. If this mechanism proves robust, it can be replicated and scaled across Europe, reducing the time, cost, and uncertainty that often separate pilots from real-world impact.
The pathway unfolds in two complementary steps. First comes cross-fertilisation: a structured exchange of knowledge, tools, governance practices, and lessons learned between Trailblazers and Followers. Then comes transferability in the strict sense—the phase where transfer must become measurable and actionable. Here metaCCAZE introduces a methodological approach that enables partners to estimate, first, a Transferability Potential (how transferable a mobility solution is between two cities, given constraints and enabling conditions), and second—once transfer has actually taken place—to assess the Efficiency of the Transfer Process (how smoothly, effectively, and “with how much friction” the receiving city could absorb and operationalise what was transferred).
At the core of this approach is a scientific and practical concept: the Transferability Unit (TU). A TU is the minimum transferable building block—a requirement, asset, capability, decision, or operational procedure that must be in place for a use case to work. This modularisation is crucial for flexibility: it is not always possible (or even desirable) to transfer an entire use case “as is”. In practice, cities often transfer modules and adapt them locally, while keeping the overall solution coherent.
Each TU is described through KPIs and is organised along two complementary lenses:
- Dimensions (e.g., regulation and policy, governance and procurement, infrastructure and energy, data and interoperability, operations and safety, user and socio-political acceptance) to ensure the assessment covers all relevant aspects of the solution—not just technology.
- Layers (fleet, physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, service/decision tools, user level) to ensure the assessment spans the full socio-technical stack needed for deployment.
Importantly, KPIs are not all of the same type. Some are 0/1 enabling conditions (if they are missing, transfer is not feasible). Others are threshold indicators (a minimum level must be met—think of grid capacity, fleet size, staffing requirements). Others are discrete/continuous indicators that signal a better or worse degree of transferability without acting as hard blockers. This classification makes the framework both rigorous and operational: it captures “go/no-go” constraints while still recognising gradual improvement.
The outcome is more than a simple “ok / adaptation needed / blocking” label. Used properly, the framework becomes a diagnostic and decision-support tool: it helps cities and partners identify where adaptation is required—policy adjustments, procurement choices, data governance, infrastructure upgrades, operating procedures—and what should be prioritised to make transfer possible and efficient.
In short, metaCCAZE is not only transferring technologies. It is transferring a method to turn innovations into impact—city by city—until scaling becomes the default rather than the exception.
Authors: Andrea Papola & Vincenzo Punzo (UNINA)
