GSA awards contract for system to gather travel data
Details on more than $15 billion in annual travel-related spending will be used to report on trends.
After years of planning, the General Services Administration has awarded a contract for the development of a central database to house information on government travel spending, which amounts to about $15.4 billion annually.
The contract awarded to TRX Data Services Inc. of Atlanta on Jan. 11 has a one-year base period worth $1.2 million and four option years that could bring the total value to $9.2 million.
The database will bridge the gap between information generated from the government's two major electronic travel booking systems -- the eGov Travel Service, run by GSA, and the Pentagon's Defense Travel System. The database will contain all relevant travel data from both, including information on flights, hotel reservations and auto rentals. The data will be used to produce management reports on travel trends.
Vic Pynn, chief operating officer of TRX, said that with the proper authorization, the system feeding the database also will be able to collect data from sources outside the two online travel systems.
Government travel spending -- which totaled $15.4 billion in fiscal 2005 and $13.2 billion in fiscal 2004 -- is highly decentralized and consolidating the data could provide the information agencies need to set policies for more efficient use of resources.
Pynn said that over the past three years large private corporations have taken a closer look at their travel-spending patterns.
"If you can harness that knowledge and understand what supplier it is coming from, you can negotiate much better deals with airlines and hotels," Pynn said. "You don't know how efficient they are currently."
Pynn said he could not provide an estimate for how much the government could save by implementing this system. Because TRX processes data from many of the top travel agencies and airlines -- including Expedia.com, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, American Express, American Airlines and British Airways -- collecting the data could be as simple as making a phone call, Pynn said. The company will then filter the data and ensure it is comparable among agencies, he said.