6. Actions Required

6.1 PURSUIT OF FUTURE REQUIREMENTS VIA THE EUROPEAN RADIO-NAVIGATION PLAN AND 6TH FRAMEWORK TO PROVIDE POLICY, TOOLS AND SERVICES NEEDED BY USERS

Because any funding or planned RTD will follow political direction, it is important to use the ERNP initiative to promote the users requirements to ensure policy direction for our communities needs. Because often navigation and communication services are interdependent, we cannot segregate communication from navigation. Where communication is intrinsic to the application it needs to be to be treated as navigation localisation service with in the ERNP.

There is need to provide for a forum within or reporting to the ERNP (European Radio-navigation plan) with all mobility groups to define baseline standards for software, timing, vertical and horizontal accuracy, telemetric and interoperability issues. The aim will be to build on base-line standards to facilitate the evolution of generic products tailor made for individual user communities that will be affordable, increase safety and efficiency and benefit the environment.

This will involve an action to determine all high precision positioning applications that require position and guidance information. They will also enable the use of position and navigation information for mobile users for all leisure pursuits, business and work activities, as well as safety and security. This should seek to suggest standards for common hardware, software and information solutions to enable generic base line standards for technology that will use common services and be based on high production core elements.

Another action requires maritime, sea and land components to investigate how emerging technologies might full-fill applications needed for and within vessels, vehicles, trailers, carriages as well as for cargo and the infrastructures in which they reside. This might for example include blue tooth technology for monitoring personnel or cargo, Psuedolites or Synchrolites might be applicable to docking vessels, stacking containers, guidance of road vehicles or shunting carriages.

6.2 LORAN

Urgent action is required to establish the viability of LORAN and EUROFIX for all transport and mobility communities. In view that subsequent to the VOLPE report and the 9-11 atrocities LORAN is being considered by the US as a relatively low cost solution to providing for a non space based service. EUROCONTROL have conducted a study that has shown that it could be cost effective to use LORAN providing other users shared the cost of commissioning new stations required. And in view of the possibilities of combining LORAN with CHAYKA there is need to determine whether the service is viable as a back up and would provide a useful services for the all transport and mobility users.

Policy is required at European level to determine whether LORAN will be supported in the medium term and if supported a funding mechanism found that was not relying on the good will of a few member states to provide services benefiting many others. Because the NELS LORAN service is due to be shut down in 2004, a decision is required urgently. The political direction should also expand LORAN's coverage to provide for the needs of EUROCONTROL and the road and rail community as a complementary terrestrial radio-navigation services that can work alongside GALILEO and GPS 2 & 3.

Though the EGNOS and WAAS space element are compatible, presently users who ply between the US and Europe who might wish to use EUROFIX and LORAN WAAS are unable to do so using the same receiver. We need to have an interoperable solution that enables EUROFIX users to use the LORAN based WAAS service in the US. In the future we must ensure harmonisation of all LAAS and WAAS and other radio-navigation services.

LORAN might not be the long term answer, but it might provide an interim solution for the next few years, but only if receivers were commonly available and there was clear policy direction that LORAN would continue for the foreseeable future, and SELS (Southern European LORAN Service) would be fully implemented within the Mediterranean Sea.