EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) provides corrections and integrity information to GPS signals covering a broad area centred over Europe.

The EGNOS Services are global European navigation/data services widely offered and accessible, enabling a huge variety of potential applications in many different user communities such as maritime, rail, road, agriculture and, of course, aviation. The three EGNOS Services are: The EGNOS Open Service (OS), freely available to the public in Europe; The EGNOS Safety of Life Service (SoL), providing the most stringent level of signal-in-space performance to all Safety of Life user communities in Europe, particularly defined for aviation. The EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS): for customers requiring enhanced performance for commercial and professional use;

This paper will recall the EGNOS development process in parallel to the EGNOS based applications development required efforts providing an overview of how these processes were synchronized.

It will focus on the importance of the development of SBAS based added value applications to balance the business case justifying the huge investment required for an SBAS system development. The deployment of a perfect SBAS technology delivering a precise signal in space will not ensure the necessary return on investment within acceptable timelines if the necessary effort is not made in 2 main aspects, intimately linked to the role of the SBAS Service Provider: the Service Provision Interfaces and the support to SBAS based applications development.

This paper will be able to share the outcomes and lessons learnt from such challenging tasks as performed by ESSP. The EGNOS based services Implementation process and all the initiatives put in place to support that implementation showing the huge expertise gained through the development of the EGNOS services.

The definition, implementation and improvement of these Service Provision interfaces is crucial for the success of the whole SBAS programme, becoming the most powerful tool to fit the services offered to the actual user needs / expectations boosting EGNOS services implementation. These user interfaces aim to enable a path for continuous interaction with users, to identify user needs, to provide information/support to the user and to channel relevant user feedback. Moreover some of these interfaces are actually driven by regulatory aspects applying to the implementation of SBAS based applications in all domains (e.g. SBAS Service Provider Approval/Certification required in Civil Aviation), being key these are available on time to enable the use of this technology.

The introduction of a new technology in any domain takes time. This fact drives the necessity to launch a set of specific actions enabling the synchronization of the SBAS technology deployment with the corresponding downstream applications readiness. This paper will highlight be able to expose the outcomes and lessons learnt from ESSP experience in this field, with special focus on:
- Dissemination & awareness activities
- Capacity building activities
- Ad-hoc technical support in the development/validation of downstream applications
- Support to regulatory developments in all application domains
- R&D projects and incentive schemes

Keywords: GNSS, SBAS, EGNOS, services, users, applications, interfaces