Putting the “e” into Easy Trip Planning

or the 93,000 federal employees on the road each day for official business, getting there probably wasn't easy. Planning a trip can be a hassle-waiting for a supervisor's approval and working with commercial travel agents to find hotels and flights at the government rate. Then there's filing for reimbursement and worrying about whether it will arrive in time to pay the government travel card bill before late fees kick in.

But the Bush administration wants to simplify and streamline the federal travel management process, and in August, the General Services Administration awarded a 10-year, $450 million contract to Northrop Grumman Corp. and CW Government Travel Inc. to provide end-to-end travel management systems to agencies throughout the federal government. Agencies will be able to choose one of these vendors to handle their travel business. GSA chose two companies in an attempt to build some competition into the process, as well as give agencies options when deciding on a system.

Currently, each agency has to handle its own travel services. This often requires contracts with multiple vendors. The new eTravel systems will offer all the traditional services-authorization, reservations, claims submission, voucher reconciliation and reimbursement-in one convenient place: the World Wide Web. Travel policy rules will be built into the systems, allowing per diem and City Pair fares to be calculated automatically. The systems also will ensure travel service providers comply with fire safety rules and other federal mandates. In the not-so-distant future, federal employees will be able to plan their travel in a short Web session, saving time, paper, and eventually, federal dollars.

One of the Bush administration's 24 e-government projects aimed at harnessing the Internet to save money and boost efficiency, the eTravel initiative could cut federal travel costs in half, advocates say. That's a lot of money. In fiscal 2002, federal agencies spent more than $10 billion on airline tickets, hotels and car rentals. According to Tim Burke, GSA's eTravel program manager, shifting to a Web-based environment not only makes the process more efficient, but also helps keep the government in step with mainstream travel trends.

"The government has the chance to be on the leading edge and not the bleeding edge," Burke says.

Before putting out a request for proposals last fall, Burke and his colleagues at GSA spent months surveying federal employees and other government entities, and logged more than 4,000 hours with travel and technology experts, to get a sense of what an automated, Web-based travel system should look like. "There was a great deal of interest in the industry," Burke says. "We were very pleased with the amount of competition we had."

GSA chose two companies that had long relationships with the federal government. Northrop Grumman is already the contractor for the Defense Department, whose own Web-based travel management initiative, the Defense Travel System, is scheduled to roll out in 2006. CW Government Travel has provided travel management services to the government for at least 10 years. "GSA very aggressively got out of the box and said we're going to make this happen for the federal government, and, of course, we needed to fine-tune our existing product to meet those needs," says Craig Thompson, CW Government's vice president of government markets.

Both contractors provide ready-to-deliver products that can be tweaked to meet the needs of a particular agency.

"As we set up the service at each federal agency, we can configure the system to meet the small differences in their business processes," Leo Hergenroeder, Northrop's program manager for eTravel services, says about the company's product, GovTrip (www.govtrip.com).

Under the GSA contract, the two vendors will pitch their systems to agency officials, who will then select the product that works best for their organizations. "Two vendors competing with each other head-to-head; customer agencies are going to benefit from that," Burke says. "Let's see how creative industry can be to help us get where we need to be. As long as it makes good sense that parallel vendors are competing and driving innovation, there will be a need for some competitive pressure, for competitive challenges."

Over the next few months, GSA will bring a select few agencies on board to test the two vendors' systems before rolling them out in December. However, that date may be pushed back because of a bid protest filed by Electronic Data Systems on Aug. 29.

"We believe that the procurement process was not fair to all bidders and that the award decision was flawed," says EDS spokesman Kevin Clarke. "We believe that the EDS system offered the lowest overall cost."

EDS, which provides travel management services to the International Trade Commission, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Veterans Affairs Department, asked that work on the eTravel initiative stop until the General Accounting Office rules on the protest. GAO has until Dec. 8.

A GSA spokeswoman says officials there cannot comment on pending protests, but says the agency is complying with bid protest rules. In the interim, the two contractors chosen continue to express confidence in their products.

"If a federal traveler is comfortable changing their address on the Internet, using Southwest.com, or ordering from Eddie Bauer, they are absolutely comfortable with this product," Thompson says.

The systems will give managers up-to-the-minute access to their travel budgets and allow federal travelers to direct reimbursements to travel card vendors. Some elements of the traditional travel management environment will remain-travel agency call centers will provide customer support for travelers who need help using the systems. The eTravel initiative also includes the creation of a data repository that will catch and store all the information compiled through the systems. Agencies can then use that information in determining travel budget projections.

"We can easily acquire that information when we need it [and] have transparency into how we do our travel," Burke says.

In June, GSA told agencies via the Federal Register to start gearing up for conversion to an agencywide eTravel system. GSA will begin working with agency officials in January on migrating to their new systems. The systems are expected to be up and running at all agencies by 2006.

Contact etravel@gsa.gov for more information on the eTravel initiative.