Using commercial travel spend reporting tactics proved to be "amazing" for the U.S. General Services Administration, as many federal agencies now enjoy greater transparency in the utilization of tax dollars through successful data aggregation, which also has enabled GSA to report each participating agency's travel carbon footprint, according to Jerry Bristow, GSA FAS program lead for the center for travel management.
A TRX data intelligence solution enables GSA to take several buckets of spend and place it all into one "depository," resulting in opportunities to "improve slippage," according to Bristow, who spoke here last week at a Society of Government Travel Professionals conference.
"As the world's largest travel spender, there was a lack of transparency into the spending and the utilization of our program. We didn't know who was using citypair fares, we didn't know who was using the FedRooms properties or if we were really getting a good deal," said Bristow. "Now, you can see how each of the individual travelers are traveling and how you can formulate policy based on those different types of behavior, and make those work for you in those different areas."
Since 2008, the data, about 4.5 million transactions a year, has been collected from 71 agencies and independent commissions within the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation, via 17 preferred travel management companies and the E-Gov Travel Servicessystem. Once the agency provides all of its data, from however many streams, the tool can issue a report detailing a travel program's weaknesses and strengths about two days later.
"We are able to run these reports and make faster decisions," explained Bristow. "Usually, the government moves really slow because of the size that we are--it's tough for us to get going."
Through the aggregation of data, these agencies can examine preferred airline utilization by city pair, Bristow said. "Next time the airlines come back and say, 'We aren't getting all the utilization in these markets,' I can go back and look at the report and say, 'You're getting about 82 percent; how much more do you want?' We can now go back to airline vendors with the data and better negotiate with them." GSA developed "prenegotiating strategies yielding active results in cost savings for the citypair program, and in response we are able to reward to the ultimate carrier," Bristow added.
Tracking travelers' air bookings presented additional opportunities to improve compliance to class-of-service policies. Many travelers booked trips over the 14-hour requirement in order to fly first class, but the data aggregator "shows what the best type of flight would have been to accommodate that type of travel, and if they have extended their time when they didn't qualify for that trip," said Bristow. GSA alerts the federal agencies of such conduct.
For hotels, the "strategic goal is for the best value for our government customers. [The data] allows us to ensure that we have travelers staying in the correct place, close to their work environment. It allows you to select those types of hotels through the FedRooms programand it ensures us that our travelers are having the best experience possible," Bristow said.
Previously, if an agency attempted to track and report travel spend, the travel management companies and the agencies were tasked in doing so. For the USDA, it wasn't until GSA implemented the data aggregation tool that USDA program manager Jerry Chenault realized agency travelers had been booking through 475 different TMCs, and eventually he informed travelers to use a select five.
"The disparate reports that we were getting or the different types of reports that you could get were not good, and we needed to aggregate that data into a central depository," said Bristow. "This is the first time that you will see this type of data. We didn't know what we didn't know, and now we are able to look at different types of data, assimilate it different types of ways and utilize this for the government agencies."
Issuing reports to the federal agencies directly eventually will relieve TMCs from having to do so, Bristow acknowledged. The TMCs responsibilities will be to provide the data, not to aggregate or interpret it. However, funding for the aggregator after this year has yet to be determined, Bristow admitted. The tool currently is funded by GSA through 2010, but it is discussing several alternatives, including a transaction-based fee model, according to Bristow.
Counting Carbon
The detailed data also enables the federal agencies to view travel carbon footprints through the TRX Airline Carbon Emissions Calculator and other customized solutions for car, hotel and meetings.
Complying with President Barack Obama's executive order to reduce by 28 percent the federal government's carbon emissions by 2020, GSA is on a "fast track," reporting CO 2emissions for almost 99 percent of air bookings that come through the TRX tool, which represents the lion's share of trips.
"We started in February and worked with TRX and already developed greenhouse gas reporting on an individual basis," said Bristow. "TRX took every one of our records and was able to provide us with the information for air travel in a summary level" for each participating agency and also the federal government as a whole. Due to the lack of compliance with such programs as FedRooms and travelers booking directly with car rental companies, GSA is only able to report 40 percent of hotel data and 15 percent of car rental, resulting in the inability to report conclusive CO 2emissions for these categories, Bristow said.
"Travelers can book a midsize car, but when they go to the car rental agency, they might have picked up a full-size car or they may have been given a free upgrade," said Bristow. "We don't know the make or type of the car or the fuel efficiency of the car, and we don't know how many miles they drove."
Given the executive order deadline, GSA is considering working with car rental companies to have reports issued back to GSA agencies, listing the make and model of the cars driven by government travelers, Bristow said.
"We are looking at vendor supplier data direct to us that is going to assist us in providing that and until then, we have to deal with an extrapolation," Bristow said.
TRX's calculation methodology, which can be done per fiscal year, annual year or monthly, is the only one approved by the Department of Energy, Bristow noted. "What now happens is that you are able to take this data and ensure the accuracy and the completeness of it," he said.
Within the TRX tool, authorized users also can calculate meetings spend before a trip, Bristow said. For group travel reports, an application will allow agencies to insert the number of travelers, where they are traveling from, per diem rates in selected cities and citypair fares. By doing this, the government will be able to compare estimates of how much different cities will cost per trip and how much in carbon emissions will be released, Bristow said. "This will help [meeting and travel managers] to select the proper location for group travel," he added.