The U.S. Department of Defense spends billions on travel every year. Its policies have grown unwieldy. The Defense Travel System has been widely derided. Travel payment processes are rife with errors. Projects now underway aim to fix a lot of that.
DOD since June has been running a limited pilot of the newest version of DTS. It coincides with travel policy simplification. Together, the two initiatives are supposed to save hundreds of millions. Meanwhile, a DOD human resources office is running a request for information to help guide the department’s future travel management company solicitations.
Issued Jan. 6, that RFI is meant to support the Defense Travel Management Office in determining “the capabilities of contractors and innovations in the management of travel management companies in order to tailor acquisition approaches and formulate requirements in the future competition of TMC contracts.”
Responses are due Jan. 26. Interested vendors listed thus far include Alamo Travel Group, Kuwait-based Alshamel Travel, BCD Travel and CI Azumano Travel.
The RFI lists various travel management services: reservations, authorizations, fulfillment, reporting, support for federal travel rules and so on. Because DOD’s business is a tough one, it also needs “transportation of human remains.”
The request contemplates a “management service fee contract in lieu of point-of-sale transaction based contract.” It also asks for “the maximum number of transactions that the vendor can efficiently manage per month and per year.” Those include DTS transactions.
The Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of DTMO on Jan. 22 posted several notices of intent to extend existing travel management services contracts with incumbents CW Government Travel (also known as CWTSato) and Omega World Travel. It is doing so “to provide time to recompete” DOD’s travel requirements “on a full and open basis to the entire vendor community.”
According to DOD’s Inspector General, the department in fiscal 2014 spent $6.5 billion on travel, including $4.7 billion through DTS. In December 2016, the U.S. Digital Service in a report to Congress said DOD “currently” spends $8.7 billion on travel annually, with DTS accounting for $3.5 billion. The report indicated that the DTS per-transaction fee is about $10.
Calling In The SWAT Team
DOD in 2014 conducted a separate RFI for DTS modernization. Though it started a pilot, DOD hasn’t identified the provider. Press officials gave no update. Listed interested parties included CI Azumano, IBM and nuTravel; other familiar players may have been represented by consultants.
An October 2016 article on DOD’s website indicated DTS would transition “from the existing DOD contractor-developed system to a commercial, cloud-based system” used by Fortune 500 companies. In its Congressional report, USDS indicated that the new SaaS travel tool — in testing among “basic travelers” — and the “streamlined” travel policy “both are still being refined.”
According to the Obama White House, the new DTS system in pilot “has greatly improved usability, simplified travel policies, and has the potential for large cost saving potential.”
There’s much work to do. The USDS report to Congress indicated that the pre-existing system — which handles more than 25,000 transactions and 100,000 unique users every day — “provides a poor user experience and limited reporting capability.” It noted that DOD is “following an industry best practice” by testing the new system before all development work is completed. This allows DOD to consider “real-world usage.”
An offshoot of USDS, the Defense Digital Service is helping with the DTS pilot. The report indicated that DDS “assisted DOD and its DTS contractor in identifying a commercial vendor that could meet its requirements without requiring expensive customization.” Many U.S. government agencies use the second-generation E-Gov Travel Service furnished separately by Concur and CWTSato; there is no indication that DOD will.
DDS director Chris Lynch during the Defense One Tech Summit in Washington last June said his “SWAT” team all came from the private sector. “We want to modernize [DTS] and make it enjoyable to use,” Lynch said. “I myself have been a victim of the current system, being left in places without tickets back. Our plan is to pilot a cloud-based, multi-tenant SaaS solution” commonly found in corporate travel programs.
Policy First
DOD in its Winter 2017 Dispatch acknowledged “it is no secret” that “complex rules and regulations” are costly and frustrating.
“Digital services are only as good as their underlying policy,” according to USDS. It said many current DTS challenges stem from the complexity in the 1,600-page Joint Travel Regulations.
For example, DOD requires “pre-obligation” of funds for travel based on estimated trip cost. USDS noted that most commercial travel systems cannot easily handle that. As such, USDS said DOD would change requirements to avoid system customization.
Another example is that JTR has precluded “the integration of industry-standard features like restricted fares.” DOD last year changed the JTR “to simplify and streamline the process for using restricted fares.” Even so, DTS doesn’t have the automation to accommodate unassisted bookings of such fares.
These changes are part of a larger effort to overhaul JTR. The project started in 2011 and, according to DOD, should wrap up by October.
Revisions include simplifying and standardizing categories of travel, types of travelers and allowances. As a result, travelers and travel approvers “will have a better understanding of what allowances are permitted for the types of travel being performed, without the need to differentiate between minor nuances that can complicate what is authorized.” To reflect current industryspeak, the term “travel management company” will replace “commercial travel office” throughout the regulations.
DOD this month again expanded its Integrated Lodging Program Pilot to include more sites.
