It Sounded Like A Good Idea...

But Investigators Say Pentagon Travel System Is Pricey Boondoggle

(AP)  The Pentagon that gave taxpayers a $434 hammer and a $600 toilet seat cover now has a half-billion-dollar travel booking system that is bypassed by more than eight in 10 users.

Senate investigators found the Pentagon's Web-based product - despite its high price tag - fails to find the cheapest airfares, offers an incomplete list of flights and hotels and won't recognize travel categories used by the National Guard and Reserves.

The investigators found that Defense Department travelers are contacting professional travel agents to find their hotels, flights and rental cars, and then using the computer system to enter those choices. Once the system is activated at an installation, travelers must use it to make their reservations, the Pentagon said.

The result: a half-hour booking process that, according to testimony before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, would take travel professionals only five minutes.

The Defense Travel System was designed as the Pentagon's moneysaving version of an Internet travel site, where a traveler can make reservations without the need for fee-based travel agents.

The contract for the travel system was awarded in 1998 to a company that is now part of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems.

The subcommittee, in checks this year of 41 military installations and the Pentagon, found that 83 percent of travelers have been contacting professional travel agents before entering the information in the new system. Investigators said they checked 755,000 trips between January and September.

At the Pentagon, less than 20 percent of travelers used the Defense Travel System as intended, without the travel agents. Virtually no travelers used the system at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., investigators found.

Pentagon officials insist the new system is working well.

"If my boss said I had to leave in a couple of hours, I could do that," said Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman. "The future is in Internet booking. The system is effective, it's efficient, it gives you options on airlines, rental car agencies and hotels. We're very impressed."

[bluestardad]

If you dig this program has roots in Nepotism.

[turnthepage2]

DTS is a farce. The guy at the Pentagon is singing the party line. The system won't let you find time and cost saving options like getting a rental car. Why should I pick up a rental at an airport for a two day trip for a drive from NRF to DC? The airport charges parking. Most rental companies allow you to park free. Addtionally, I have to bill the gov. for the miles to drive my POV to the airport! You should see how much time it takes our supervisors to validate our travel.

As gov. workers we are forced to become experts in something that other experts used to do for us. We even have another website for doing our hourly time and leave. If some auditor would add up the man-hours spent trying to learn, input, correct and navagate these systems we would truly see the hours wasted. Each new website that we are required to use has different menus and features, we need a standard webformat, that is intitutive, and that works. Internet is good for posting and hosting information, not good for data entry and databasing. We need a truthful audit of all of the systems!

[peacethinker-2009]

Why can't the government do anything efficiently and honestly? Follow the money of course, some official is likely repaying a political favor, getting a kickback or buttering-up a relative or business connection, etc.

[rf35]

DTS is the biggest joke I've seen in 15 years of service. Not only does it take days to get travel approved, but getting reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses can take months! I%u2019ve seen people lose their eligibility for the government travel card because of the time DTS takes to get them the money to pay the bill. This is particularly hard on the junior enlisted folks when the GTC bill for a lengthy trip can easily be more than they make in a month. Of course the bank with the card contract doesn%u2019t care if DTS is causing a delay in reimbursement, they just want their money. Add this cost to the DTS estimates and the deal just keeps getting worse. How about getting that Major to handle the system for me and my troops? He can pay our GTC bills while we%u2019re waiting on DTS.