Defense Travel System Under Fire

After spending 10 years and nearly one-half billion dollars, the federal government is considering shelving the Department of Defense's online-based Defense Travel System amid claims of its ineffectiveness.

The system, which is over budget and behind schedule, has yet to be fully deployed and any return on investment is questionable, according to testimony given yesterday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee from the DOD inspector general, the Government Accountability Office, the Corporate Solutions Group and Citizens Against Government Waste.

The Defense Travel System is intended to streamline the travel process for 3.2 million DOD users, but since phase one of its launch in 1998 the system has reached only 685,000 DOD employees.

"As originally envisioned, the initial deployment of DTS was to commence within 120 days after the effective date of the contract award in September 1998, with complete deployment to approximately 11,000 locations by April 2002," GAO said in a report. "However, that date has been changed to September 200--a slippage of over 4 years." DOD now slates a full launch for 2007.

The system, built by contractor Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, has been marred by inefficiencies, critics said. A GAO report said that in addition to being off schedule, the program has been lacking in performance. "The Defense Travel System's development and implementation have been problematic, especially in the area of requirements and testing key functionality to ensure that the system would perform as intended," GAO said, adding that the flight search and display functionality has been wrought with inaccuracies.

Corporate Solutions Group travel industry consultant Bob Langsfeld said that during an audit of the system, 7 percent to 8 percent of fares were not loaded properly or at all into global distribution systems. "When this result was disclosed to GSA, however, their response was to say that the error rate of 8 percent was totally and completely acceptable," Langsfeld said in testimony. "The government's response was nothing short of astounding. In the corporate sector, a 1 percent omission rate would result in a contractor being called on the carpet for corrective action, and a 2 percent variance would probably result in termination."

Zack Gaddy, director of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, yesterday defended the system and said it would deliver on its value proposition once fully deployed, estimating that in 2006 alone the system would yield $35 million in savings.

Yet, others disagreed. "The original rationale for DTS was valid: a streamlined, cost-effective way for the Department of Defense to purchase and manage commercial travel," said Thomas Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "Like many other well-meaning government ideas, poor execution and misinformation doomed DTS."