Agencies gearing up to hop on the e-travel train

After a few bumps along the way, including a bid protest from Electronic Data Systems Corp. arguing that the original $450 million eTravel contract was awarded unfairly, the federal eTravel program is set to make its debut later this year.

Many agencies have their own electronic travel systems, but they don't integrate reservation, voucher and approval applications. Travelers must deal with multiple stand-alone systems. By centralizing travel operations, eTravel remedies problems arising from inconsistent processes, duplicative systems and tasks, and the inability to quickly gather travel data. eTravel is expected to generate savings of $1 billion over the next 10 years, 40 percent of which are actual cost savings and the rest are gains in efficiency.

Three contractors - CW Government Travel Inc., EDS and Northrop Grumman Corp. - were selected to develop eTravel systems for federal agencies. The products may vary in aspects such as user interface and architecture, but they all must offer a core, integrated set of functions: travel authorization and voucher processing, reservations and ticketing, and travel and financial reporting. Each agency must choose one of the systems once they become available.

In the March issue of Government Executive Caroline Polk explores this $450 million project, which aims to to automate and consolidate travel processes for people traveling on official government business. To read more about it click here.