An illustration of the velocity dispersion analysis (VDA) method applied onto GOES particle measurements. (A) The event no. 17 from Table 2 (supplementary online material) as this was recorded onboard GOES/EPS at a wide energy range from 4–500 MeV (i.e. P2–P7; see the legend of the figure for details). Vertical lines mark the start and end time of the event as identified in this work; the title provides the number of the event as well the start and end time; the ordinate presents the proton intensities (in particles/cm² sr sec MeV) and the abscissa presents the time in hours from the onset time, the latter labelled with the first vertical line. (B) The application of the VDA method, i.e. start times of the proton event observed by GOES/EPS, as a function of the inverse velocity (1/b). The straight line shows a linear regression to the observations, where the slope corresponds to the apparent path length (S), and the intersection with the X-axis gives the solar release time (t).