Push-Button Travel

That blizzard of paperwork that surrounds almost every business trip is destined for the dustbin. This is the dawning of the age of electronic travel in government. The General Services Administration's eTravel program promises all agencies the ability to go paperless for authorization and voucher processing, reservations and ticketing, and to provide travel and financial reporting for management electronically.

More than 93,000 federal employees travel each day to more than 8,000 destinations, and in fiscal 2002, the last data available, agencies spent more than $10 billion on travel costs.

By centralizing operations, eTravel is intended to remedy governmentwide problems with inconsistent processes, duplicative systems and tasks, and the inability to gather travel data quickly. And eTravel is expected to generate savings of $1 billion over the next 10 years, much of which is expected to result from gains in efficiency.

GSA awarded contracts to three vendors-CW Government Travel, EDS and Northrop Grumman-to develop eTravel systems, but without guarantees that federal agencies would actually purchase them. GSA also has blanket purchase agreements with 10 firms to provide a variety of services to support eTravel. The three prime vendors are feverishly pitching their products in a competition for agencies' business.

At the end of March, GSA sponsored a series of demonstrations in Washington, where the three vendors showed off their products to more than 350 agency representatives. All three systems have been undergoing testing at the Transportation Department since December 2003. Each eTravel product must fulfill a set of performance requirements and attain security certification and accreditation to reach full operational capability and become available to agencies. The process involves going to vendor-hosting facilities for site visits, which have taken longer than planned, according to GSA spokeswoman Viki Reath. Agencies should be able to start issuing task orders by the end of June.

The companies emphasize their experience with meeting the needs of government travelers and agency financial managers. According to Kay Anderson-Hager, vice president of marketing and sales, CW Government Travel is the only competitor "with over two decades of government-dedicated travel experience as a travel management company serving various civilian federal agencies and the Department of Defense." Steve Vetter, spokesman for US Government Solutions' E-Travel Solution, FedTraveler.com, notes that EDS' system already is in place at the International Trade Commission, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and Veterans Affairs Department. And Leo Hergenroeder, program manager for Northrop Grumman's GovTrip system, said Northrop's experience as prime contractor for the Defense Travel System helped the company develop GovTrip.

Reath notes that eTravel implementation is only six weeks behind the original schedule-despite last year's bid protest from EDS arguing that the original $450 million eTravel contract was awarded unfairly. Now, "EDS is done [with its testing]. We are standing by, ready to go. . . . No significant issues are outstanding," confirms EDS' Vetter. Twenty-two of 24 agencies slated to switch to eTravel submitted their system migration plans by the March 31 deadline, according to GSA.

All three vendors will be demonstrating their products at GSA's National Travel Forum June 28 to July 1 in Dallas.

Agencies are required to begin implementing eTravel systems by the end of this year and complete deployment by Sept. 30, 2006. Eight agencies were expected to place orders for eTravel products by the end of June, GSA officials say.

Since January, testing at the Federal Aviation Administration's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City has produced positive feedback from users. Out of about 200 travelers at the center, 75 percent chose to book their trips online, according to GSA.