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i 

48–797 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–16] 

CAN DOD TRAVELERS BOOK A TRIP? 

DEFENSE TRAVEL SYSTEM UPDATE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MARCH 5, 2009 
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ASHLEY ALLEY, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2009 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, March 5, 2009, Can DOD Travelers Book a Trip? Defense Travel 

System Update ..................................................................................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, March 5, 2009 ........................................................................................ 23 

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2009 

CAN DOD TRAVELERS BOOK A TRIP? DEFENSE TRAVEL SYSTEM 

UPDATE 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

Wittman, Hon. Rob, a Representative from Virginia, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

Fisher, David M., Director, Business Transformation Agency, Department 

of Defense ............................................................................................................. 5 

Khan, Asif A., Director, Financial Management and Assurance, U.S. Government Accountability Office .................................................................................. 8 

Mitchell, Pamela S., Director, Defense Travel Management Office, Department of Defense .................................................................................................... 4 

Moore, Dr. William B., Vice President, LMI Government Consulting ................ 7 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Fisher, David M., joint with Pamela S. Mitchell ........................................... 33 

Khan, Asif A. ..................................................................................................... 54 

Moore, Dr. William B. ...................................................................................... 48 

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 27 

Wittman, Hon. Rob ........................................................................................... 30 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

March 17, 2009 letters from Dr. Snyder and Mr. Wittman to the Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy requesting information on 

service legacy travel systems ....................................................................... 75 

April 27, 2009 letter from John W. McNair, Acting Assistant Secretary 

of the Navy, answering the March 17, 2009 letter on behalf of the 

Secretary of the Navy, with enclosures ....................................................... 78 
Page

IV 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mrs. Davis ......................................................................................................... 86 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 85 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 86 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 89 
(1) 

CAN DOD TRAVELERS BOOK A TRIP? DEFENSE TRAVEL 

SYSTEM UPDATE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 5, 2009. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:04 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. The hearing will come to order. Good afternoon. 

Welcome to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

hearing on updates to the Defense Travel System, the DTS system. 

The subcommittee last held a hearing on this issue in April of 

2008, just short of a year ago. As we said at that time, we thought 

this topic was an important one. It certainly is an expensive one. 

And we are here to get an update on the progress that has been 

made, as we said we would last year. 

And there is a lot of challenges that continue. And I think anyone would agree with that in the Defense Travel System. DTS is 

supposed to be the primary end-to-end travel system for Department of Defense (DOD) personnel. The Department of Defense 

spends between 9 and $10 billion on defense travel every year, 

while the system has been plagued by developmental problems, 

operational test failures, premature deployments, functionality 

problems, low usage, and general user dissatisfaction. The importance of this kind of issue is that 60 percent of the Pentagon’s procurement budget, the acquisition budget, does not go into equipment, the sexy items that get all the attention like rifles and tanks 

and planes, it goes into services contracts like the Defense Travel 

System we are considering today. 

And it is very important, in a bipartisan manner, to this Congress that we find out how money is being spent and figure out the 

most efficient way to accomplish the goals of the American people. 

It has been reported that even though the Defense Travel System 

is operational in over 95 percent of DOD locations, the Department 

is still allowing travelers to use legacy systems. This is an inefficient waste of taxpayer money, and the Department needs to ensure that all personnel who should be using DTS are, in fact, using 

it. This committee has heard repeated concerns from DOD travelers that DTS is a confusing, complicated system. In fact, a 

usability study conducted last year by LMI Government Consulting 
2 

showed that only 42 percent of DOD travelers could successfully 

complete a task in DTS, whether booking a trip, canceling one, or 

creating a voucher. 

This means over half of the travelers who were surveyed were 

unable to complete the basic tasks necessary for travel. DOD has 

spent a lot of money and time on implementation of the Defense 

Travel System, and it must become the single streamlined travel 

management system that was intended, that we all want. It is central that this is accomplished in a way that is both cost-efficient 

and user friendly. We hope all of our witnesses can help illuminate 

how much progress has been made toward achieving this goal, how 

far the Department still has to go, and where we can expect to be 

at this time next year. We will hear from two witnesses from the 

Department’s Travel Management Office (DTMO) and Business 

Transformation Agency who will tell us what kind of progress has 

been made with DTS in the past year and what current efforts are 

underway to improve the system. 

We will also hear from Logistics Management Institute (LMI) 

Government Consulting about the results of the DTS usability 

study they conducted last year for the Department, any ideas they 

may have about how to make DTS more user friendly for travelers. 

Finally, we will hear from the Government Accountability Office 

(GAO), which has done extensive work on the reliability and cost 

efficiency of DTS. In 2006, GAO issued two reports on DTS that included 14 recommendations for improvement. GAO will testify 

today on the implementation of those recommendations. It will also 

tell us how far they think the Department has to go to make sure 

that DTS is a reliable system for DOD for all travelers and administrators. 

Our panel of witnesses today consists of Ms. Pam Mitchell, the 

Director of the Defense Travel Management Office, the Department 

of Defense; Mr. David Fisher, the Director of the Business Transformation Agency at the Department of Defense; Dr. William 

Moore, the Vice President of LMI Government Consulting; and Mr. 

Asif Khan—did I say that correctly? 

Mr. KHAN. Asif Khan. 

Dr. SNYDER. Asif Khan, Director of the Financial Management 

and Assurance, Government Accountability Office. We appreciate 

you all being here. And I will turn now to Rob Wittman for his 

opening comments. And this is actually our first formal hearing, 

isn’t it, the beginning of this new Congress. And we are very, very 

pleased to have Mr. Wittman on the committee. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 27.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROB WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM VIRGINIA, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. WITTMAN. Well, thank you, Chairman Snyder. I really appreciate it. It is an honor to be here with you and serving as the ranking member. I want to say good afternoon for our witnesses. Thank 

you for taking time out of your busy schedules to join us today. We 

look forward to hearing you. And as Chairman Snyder pointed to, 

before I begin to comment about today’s hearing, I would like to 
3 

note my appreciation in the bipartisan spirit in which Chairman 

Snyder has reached out to make sure that this committee works in 

a collaborative effort in making sure that we look at all the different things that are involved with the House Armed Services 

Committee and finding ways that we can improve the Department 

of Defense and other government programs. 

So Chairman Snyder, thank you. It is a great leadership on your 

behalf and great way to run a committee. So I appreciate that. This 

afternoon we return to a topic that we examined last year, and that 

is the Defense Travel System, or DTS. DTS was initiated more 

than 10 years ago to better account for DOD travel costs. And in 

other words, the initial focus was to benefit the accountant, not the 

user. And while accountability is a worthy objective, the early efforts gave little heed to user friendliness, leading to lots of frustration, and ultimately user rejection of the system. And since travel 

processed online is substantially cheaper to book than travel 

booked the traditional way, this failure to consider user friendliness was counterproductive. Indeed, widespread user frustration 

has brought this issue to the subcommittee’s attention. 

And the average sergeant and captain in the field was literally 

fed up with being ordered to use a system that did not produce results. And we heard loud and clear that frustration. And we are 

looking at ways we can overcome that. I understand that DTS is 

continuing to make progress in this regard, and that usage statistics and user acceptance has improved since last year. And I applaud all the efforts to make the system work better and to make 

it more user friendly. And as we all know, we are encouraged any 

time those sorts of improvements happen, but we understand that 

there are still some ways that we can improve further. 

And daunting as the DTS mission may be, given all the different 

scenarios and travel rules that DOD travelers encounter, we all 

know from personal experience that online systems that are hard 

to use will not be used. But again, I am encouraged by your 

progress and would like to know how and when you expect to complete the job and shut down redundant legacy systems. And again, 

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to your testimony. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 30.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. We will now go to your 

opening statements. We are going to have a light go on here that 

will turn red at five minutes. We will put the same clock on ourselves. And most of us will pretty much stop at the end of the five 

minutes. If there is things you need to tell us out of the five minutes, you should go ahead and do that, but I want you to have an 

idea about the length of time. It is my understanding, Ms. Mitchell 

and Mr. Fisher, you all have a joint statement. And we will begin 

with you, and then we will go to Dr. Moore and Mr. Khan. And I 

don’t want to be tacky, but I just can’t resist, I understand in the 

spirit of transparency, the first draft you sent over of your statement actually said at the top to the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB). And I appreciate that candor, that your statements 

did have to be cleared by OMB. So you should feel free, at my request, to share with us anything they edited out or perhaps more 
4 

importantly they added that you think we ought to know about. 

Who, Ms. Mitchell, are you the lead? 

STATEMENT OF PAMELA S. MITCHELL, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Ms. MITCHELL. Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, and 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to update you on progress the Department of Defense has made with the Defense Travel System. In the 

fall of 2006, Dr. David Chu, the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel and Readiness, stated to the Senate Armed Services 

Committee, commercial travel within the Department, including 

DTS, is under new management. The new management to which 

he referred evolved into an extremely effective partnership between 

the Defense Travel Management Office, DTMO, and the Business 

Transformation Agency, or the BTA. Three years ago the Travel 

Assistance Center did not exist. Today it is a single one-stop shop 

helping DOD travelers around the world 24 hours per day, 7 days 

per week. Three years ago there was no customer satisfaction program, no meaningful opportunity for users to provide feedback, and 

no reliable means of effectively gauging customer opinion. Today 

the Department is well on its way to integrating customer feedback 

into DTS improvements and the entire scope of travel. 

A key component of this program is the QuickCompass survey, 

a new scientific polling methodology. The 2008 QuickCompass is 

our baseline going forward, and provides early evidence that the 

Department’s efforts to increase usability and functionality are 

working. For example, 69 percent of DTS users in this survey find 

DTS easy to use when making airline reservations. Seventy-nine 

percent find it easy to use for rental car reservations. Seventy-one 

percent of those responding were either satisfied or very satisfied 

with expense reimbursement time, which is three times faster than 

the statutory requirement. 

And 46 percent noted they would rather use DTS for making reservations than call their commercial travel office agent. Three 

years ago, DTS processed about 257,000 temporary duty, or TDY 

vouchers during the first quarter of the fiscal year. During the first 

quarter of this fiscal year, DTS processed almost 867,000 vouchers, 

a 237.4 percent increase. Three years ago, the Department lacked 

a comprehensive training program for travelers. Today the program 

includes a variety of classes, with more on the horizon. 

Since July 2008, five new Web-based courses have provided traveler and instructor knowledge to over 38,000. Twenty-three distance learning courses were launched in early 2008 and are in active use. Three years ago, 100-plus commercial travel office contracts were managed by over 50 organizations across the Department. Today, the DTMO manages 31 small business contracts, and 

has awarded an umbrella contract to 8 commercial travel vendors. 

We have awarded 7 of 11 planned task orders under this contract, 

and expect to award the 4 remaining by the end of this year. Three 

years ago, usability and additional capability were only topics of 

discussion. 

Today, the enhanced reservation module in DTS, commonly referred to as Reservation Refresh, is regarded as a significant im-
5 

provement for travelers. Other important, more recent enhancements include an easy way to request commercial travel agent assistance from within the system and a simple method to cancel a 

trip. Further, the results of the recent LMI usability review will 

guide Department improvement of the user interface over the next 

two years. Three years ago, the focus was on basic business travel 

in DTS, with the system supporting 27 of the 73 travel types identified by the Institute for Defense Analysis. Today, work is underway to implement capability for those remaining. By October of 

this year, we plan for DTS to support 66 of the 73 travel types. The 

Department has charted an ambitious path ahead as we continue 

to improve the Defense Travel System. Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Fisher can 

be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell. I should have said you all 

have a joint written statement, but you each are doing oral statements. Mr. Fisher. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID M. FISHER, DIRECTOR, BUSINESS 

TRANSFORMATION AGENCY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. FISHER. Thank you, Chairman Snyder, Congressman Wittman, members of the subcommittee. It is a pleasure to be here 

again to discuss our continued progress with the Defense Travel 

System. As Ms. Mitchell has detailed, both usage and satisfaction 

with DTS continue to increase, as does the savings that increased 

usage brings to the Department of Defense. Reservation percentages, vouchers processed, percent of temporary duty (TDY) travel 

managed, all the metrics indicate increased adoption of the tool. 

And the recent survey provides another clear indicator that user 

satisfaction with the system continues to improve as well. And 

since the economic model for DTS is predicated upon a usage-based 

savings, these metrics all indicate increased bottom line success. 

Now, our colleagues at GAO continue to provide valuable independent oversight and assessments of DTS. We appreciate their acknowledgment of some of this progress. And the preliminary results from their current audit indicate we still have some room for 

improvement, specifically in the area of thoroughness of testing. 

And that point is well taken. It has been an additional focus area 

for us over the last few months. And it is a recommendation that 

we take to heart and continue to look at. The Business Transformation Agency is now 31⁄2 years old, and DTS is one of the 27 

inherited systems that are in our portfolio. I believe it is one of the 

best examples of the value that we have been able to bring to previously troubled enterprise systems. 

At BTA we have adopted a set of guiding principles, something 

we call the six S’s of success. And I would like to spend just a couple of minutes talking about DTS in the context of those six guiding principles. Those are strategic alignment, stovepipe elimination, standardize, streamline, simplify, and systems and services. 

DOD-wide strategic alignment around DTS is finally occurring 

after a long period of resistance. Initially the tool was clumsy to 

use. It was geared more to back-end financing processing than up- 
6 

front travel management by DOD travelers. Usage and satisfaction 

were both low. 

Beginning with the 2007 implementation of our Reservation Refresh module, alignment began to come into being. The tool became 

easier to use, adoption increased, and the mandate policy was 

issued from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Alignment is now in place between the finance and the travel communities, and increasingly with the DOD individual traveler as well, 

for DTS is the tool for travel management in the Department. 

Stovepipe elimination. This has also occurred in the last couple of 

years as the seamless integration between the travel and finance 

communities has been accomplished in DTS. Both communities 

needed individual capabilities to be implemented without sacrificing the ability for tight integration. 

The updates to DTS in the last two years have facilitated that, 

breaking down the functional stovepipes that had hindered effective processing of individual travel transactions. Standardize. Absolutely. The Department has used DTS to standardize business 

rules and policies as enforced by the tool itself for most of our TDY 

travel. Personnel and Readiness (P&R) owns the policies, BTA implements them and the tool for travelers to use. DTS now ensures 

that our DOD travelers see the same available inventory, the same 

rates, and follow the same business rules no matter who uses the 

tool or where. DTS use gives us a high degree of confidence about 

compliance to travel standards across the Department. Streamline. 

Again, absolutely. The results are in our metrics. Payment for travel vouchers is provided in about a week, beating the requirement 

by three times, and besting the old manual processes by even more. 

This is one of the greatest benefits for our people, timely and accurate pay for travel. Now, could we do more in the area of streamlining? I believe we can, but that is dependent upon the next S, 

which is simplify. This is the area where we have made the least 

progress in trying to optimize the user experience of our travelers. 

DTS remains quite complex in some areas. It inhibits our ability 

to streamline some of the elements of that front-end travel process. 

If we could simplify the rules that we need to embed in the tool 

we could simplify and streamline the process better for our travelers. I believe we collectively have more work to do in this area. 

Finally, in terms of systems and services, DTS is both. It provides a capability which embodies most of our guiding principles. 

We will continue to add to both the capability of the tool and the 

usability of the tool in part based on the excellent recommendations from the study from LMI. These ongoing enhancements, consistent with our guiding principles, will enable the Department to 

achieve our seventh S, which is savings. We can clearly make the 

case that DTS saves money for the Department. 

Each voucher processed saves on the back-end transaction costs 

to make that payment. Savings are also accruing on the front end 

of the travel reservation process, as the new contracts with our 

commercial travel partners embed lower fees when most of that 

work is done in DTS. Every reservation made, every voucher paid 

through DTS, this saves us money. Adoption of the six S’s through 

our close partnership with the DTMO has enabled us to improve 

this tool, improve the experience for our travelers, and improve the 
7 

bottom-line savings for the Department. And we are not done. We 

are continuing to update DTS to account for even more types of 

travel, and continuing to make improvements in the travel experience. And we believe these steps will continue to add to an already 

vastly improved DTS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity 

to be here today. I do look forward to answering your questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Mr. Fisher and Ms. Mitchell can 

be found in the Appendix on page 33.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Dr. Moore. 

STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM B. MOORE, VICE PRESIDENT, 

LMI GOVERNMENT CONSULTING 

Dr. MOORE. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of this distinguished subcommittee. My name is Bill Moore, and I am a vice 

president of the Logistics Management Institute, known as LMI. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify before the subcommittee. Your 

letter of invitation asked for a discussion on the Defense Travel 

System usability study that LMI completed in September of 2008. 

You have asked that I focus on LMI’s findings, recommendations, 

and the improvement strategy contained in our study. Following an 

independent study of DTS by the Institute for Defense Analysis, 

the Defense Travel Management Office asked LMI to assess the 

usability of the system for various types of users performing various tasks. I will provide a brief overview of our approach to that 

review, discuss our findings, and end with our recommendations for 

improving the usability of DTS. Our team conducted usability testing with approximately 280 participants, having a mix of demographic characteristics and level of experience with computers and 

the Internet. 

The participants included military, civilian users from the four 

military services, as well as other DOD components. We grouped 

participants into four categories: travelers, and three separate administrative functions. Participants in each group attempted to 

complete several role-specific scenarios, representing common tasks 

such as setting up a trip, canceling or modifying portions of a trip, 

or approving vouchers. We observed their performance of the tasks, 

captured usability metrics with automated software, and gathered 

participant comments and suggestions. Our findings fall into three 

broad categories: Performance-based issues that shows statistical 

differences in success rates based on user demographics; DTS-wide 

issues that affect the design of the overall system; and scenariobased issues stemming from specific tasks given to users. We found 

large differences in overall success rates for different types of users 

and the kinds of tasks they performed. 

The average success rate for travelers was only 42 percent, with 

a success rate for the remaining three roles ranging from 61 to 88 

percent. In general, we found that many ordinary tasks are difficult, require users to understand complex underlying business 

processes, invite confusion and error, lack sufficient online help, 

and are hampered by poor interface design. On the basis of our 

findings, we developed recommendations in three broad areas: Performance-based recommendations, which include making changes 

to the interface to better accommodate less experienced users; improving opportunities for training and system learnability; and en-
8 

suring that DTS provides enough feedback so that users know 

whether they have successfully completed a task. 

System-wide recommendations are to design DTS to be more like 

a traditional Web application that functions within one browser 

window, complete with a back button and a link to home. Make the 

system more like commercial travel sites, with which many users 

are already familiar. Ensure that the welcome screen has links 

that allow travelers to interact with trip documents. Revise the format of travel documents and organization of tasks. Revise the global navigation throughout the site. Make link labels clear, unambiguous, and intuitive, and improve the help information for each 

screen. We also make specific recommendations for several task 

scenarios such as trip cancellations and updating user profiles. Future improvements should be user-centered, data-driven, and research-based. The focus of initial design efforts should be on the 

scenarios where users have the most difficulty are the most critical, 

and have the greatest impact on user performance. In particular, 

DTMO should focus first on the travelers’ portion of the system. We 

provided a strategic implementation plan that outlines the iterative 

steps for changing critical portions of DTS, assessing the results, 

and then using the results to guide further refinements. By making 

changes to the system and continually measuring progress, DTMO 

has a much greater chance of ultimately improving the usability of 

the DTS on the dimensions of user effectiveness, user efficiency, 

and user satisfaction with the system. Thank you once again for 

the opportunity to appear before you. I would be happy to answer 

any questions you may have. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Moore can be found in the Appendix on page 48.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Khan. 

STATEMENT OF ASIF A. KHAN, DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND ASSURANCE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. KHAN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, and the members of 

the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our 

prior work and our ongoing review of the Defense Travel System. 

Your subcommittee has been at the forefront in addressing issues 

related to DOD travel management issues. Our testimony today 

will be based on the status of DOD three actions. The first action 

that we will be discussing is the implementation of GAO’s prior 

recommendations. The second one is DOD’s progress in phasing out 

legacy travel systems. And the third one is the cost savings associated with electronic versus manual voucher processing. After completing additional work, we plan to issue a report on the status of 

DOD actions on GAO’s prior recommendations for improving the 

Department’s management and oversight of DTS to help ensure its 

success in the future. 

Mr. Chairman, GAO has made numerous recommendations to 

help the Department improve its oversight and implementation of 

DTS and related travel policies. We are currently reviewing the 

status of DOD actions to implement the recommendations in our 

January and September 2006 reports. My testimony today is based 
9 

on this work. First, I would like to discuss the status of our prior 

recommendations. Our analysis indicates that of the 14 prior recommendations, DOD has completed action on seven. The closed 

seven recommendations dealt with premium class travel, unused 

airline tickets, use of restricted airfare, proper testing of system 

interfaces, and streamlining certain travel processes such as approving travel vouchers for expenses. While DOD has made 

progress, there is still significant work to be done. Of the open 

seven recommendations, three relate to the adequacy of DTS requirements management and systems testing, three to DTS underutilization, and one to streamlining the process to reduce the need 

for hard copy receipts. Moving to my second point, the phasing out 

of legacy travel systems. 

A key component of DOD’s travel transformation effort is the 

elimination of legacy travel systems. Our analysis shows the Department has not yet identified and validated the number of legacy 

travel systems currently being operated. We received inconsistent 

information on the number of systems in operation. According to 

DTMO, there are 23 legacy travel systems in operation. However, 

according to the military services, there are 12 legacy systems in 

operation, 10 of which were on the list provided by the DTMO. 

Without accurate information on DOD’s legacy system, there is a 

risk of not fully achieving the goal of eliminating redundant travel 

management systems. It should be noted some existing legacy travel systems will continue to operate after DTS becomes fully operational. This is because the legacy travel systems have a 

functionality which will not exist in DTS. 

A prime example of this is permanent duty travel by civilians. 

Moving to the third point, the cost of electronic versus manual 

voucher processing, the continued use of legacy travel systems, particularly where DTS has been deployed, diminishes the savings 

through electronic voucher processing. We found it significantly 

cheaper to process a voucher electronically versus manually, a cost 

saving of almost $35 per voucher. Continued use by the military 

services of manual voucher processing diminishes the cost savings 

that could occur through the use of DTS. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, transforming DOD’s financial management and business operations is a challenge. However, it is necessary for effective and efficient business operations. DTS is intended to be the Department’s comprehensive travel management 

across all locations and organizations within DOD. With over 3 million potential travel systems users, the sheer size and complexity 

of deploying DTS overshadows any similar effort in the private sector. DOD has made important progress. Nonetheless, standardizing 

business systems across the Department would be a key to saving 

billions of dollars annually. 

In closing, I commend your subcommittee for holding this hearing as a catalyst for improving the Department’s travel management policies. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks. 

I would be pleased to answer any questions that you or any other 

members of the subcommittee may have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Khan can be found in the Appendix on page 54.] 
10 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you to all of you for your both written and 

oral statements today. As one little courtesy thing, if you see me 

reach and look for my BlackBerry, please forgive me. My wife is 

home with three two-month-old baby boys, and that is how she 

fires off her red flares from Little Rock. So we will put ourselves 

on the five-minute clock here and we will go around, I am sure, at 

least a couple times, if not more. I wanted to ask the question 

about Dr. Chu’s memo from March 28th of 2008, which if it is not 

part of the record, we will make part of the record. 

And just the last paragraph that says, accordingly, pursuant to 

the authority conferred by Management Initiative Directive 921, 

DTS will be the single online travel system used by the Department. This mandate applies to all travel functions currently supported by the system, and those that will be supported in the future as they become available. And where I get confused is at the 

end of Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Fisher, at the end of your written 

statement you say, with continued progress it is expected that DTS 

will be DOD travelers’ preferred method for making travel arrangements. Now, since when do they have a choice? What is this preferred method business? I don’t care if they have a preferred method or not, I mean, there is a lot of things we do—when I fill out 

my vouchers I don’t get a preference about, you know, which form 

I fill out to get my travel paid for here. I mean, what is this preferred method when you have that mandate? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Mr. Chairman, the ‘‘preferred’’ is really a reference to the usability of the system. Certainly the mandate exists, 

and the services have, in fact, issued their own mandates. But we 

want to go beyond mandate. We want it actually to be the system 

they want to use because we have made those improvements for 

them. 

Dr. SNYDER. All right. So that was a poor choice of words then 

in your statement, because it implies that they have a choice. But 

we would all agree, would we not, that there are clearly people out 

there that are making a choice that are using the legacy systems? 

Correct? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

Dr. SNYDER. That is they should be using the DTS system, but 

they continue to use the legacy system. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. FISHER. Sir, there are some. 

Dr. SNYDER. How many? 

Mr. FISHER. I will defer to Ms. Mitchell on that. The point I 

want—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Let’s hear from Ms. Mitchell then. Do you know? I 

don’t think we know, do we? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Sir, we are actually able now to publish quarterly 

metrics. We have been able to go—one of the points I would like 

to make is we all over time, certainly in the Department and I suspect you do also, hear a lot of anecdotes. One of the major things 

we have tried to do is move from the anecdotal to the empirical. 

And so we are now able to publish quarterly metrics that give us 

a lot of information on who is using the system and who is not. 

Dr. SNYDER. Okay. How many people in the last quarter for 

which you have metrics arranged their travel on vouchers and all 
11 

through a legacy system that should have been done through the 

DTS system because of Dr. Chu’s mandate? How many is that? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We know that for vouchers filed, which is our 

best measure of usage of the system, that as of December DTS was 

processing about 73 percent of those. 

Dr. SNYDER. That doesn’t answer the question, though, does it? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Well, we know of the overall universe of TDY 

travel DTS processed 73 percent of that. 

Dr. SNYDER. Okay. Of that universe, are 100 percent of those 

supposed to be processed by DTS. 

Ms. MITCHELL. No, sir, 100 percent of those cannot be. 

Dr. SNYDER. So then we don’t know the answer to my question 

then, do we? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Frankly, we do not know by shredding it out into 

the eaches how many of that 27 percent remaining could be processed into DTS. And that is because the legacy travel systems don’t 

afford us that level of detail. 

Dr. SNYDER. And the concern, I think, for the committee is—I 

can’t remember if it is in your statement or in the background information—about the level of savings that occurs if somebody uses 

a DTS system, what is it, about $2.57 a pop? If somebody uses a 

manual voucher system it is $47? Or is that about the range? And 

so when you tell us that we don’t know how many people are using 

the other systems, we are saying we don’t know how many people 

are wasting $42 a pop of government money. Isn’t that right? Isn’t 

that what we are saying? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We are saying that of that 27 percent who did not 

use DTS in December, we don’t know how many of them could 

have used DTS. 

Dr. SNYDER. Now, my time is winding down here, but one of the 

frustrations we have had is—can you just tick off for me right now 

the names and contractors of the legacy systems? Are there 12 of 

them or are there 23 or are there 31? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Sir, we have reached out to GAO yesterday, because we believe we have identified at least most of the source of 

the confusion. We did provide a list of 23. However, there were 

redundancies in the list. Because across the services some of them 

used the same systems. The best information I have today, and let 

me just step back and say that the list that we have was provided 

by the services and validated through our governance process. 

So that is the list that we shared with the GAO. The list that 

GAO has, as was noted, 10 of those were on our list, two of those 

were new to us. And we have not had an opportunity, because we 

just got the list, to really be able to take a look at that and see 

what those two were or if they were overlooked at some earlier 

time. So what we believe right now is that it appears that there 

are 12 legacy systems that are currently still in existence processing travel. 

Dr. SNYDER. Well, my time is up. I won’t pursue this. But you 

know—and you all are good people here. And you are taking on a 

very difficult task, and have been for some years, but when I hear 

you say it appears to us there are these many legacy systems in 

an enterprise that is a $10-plus billion enterprise and we don’t 

even know for sure—I mean like what happened? Did one of them 
12 

get Harry Potter’s invisibility cape and disappear? I mean we can’t 

even tell how many legacy systems we have out there or how they 

are paid for or who the contractors are? I mean, I don’t get it. I 

don’t get it. Mr. Wittman, maybe you got it. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Mitchell, you 

heard from Dr. Moore about LMI’s report and the 39 recommendations contained within to enhance the usability of DTS. Can you 

give us your estimates about what the costs are associated with 

those particular improvements? How many can be incorporated 

into parts of the systems that are ongoing now, how much would 

be separate, and what the costs would be associated with those? 

Ms. MITCHELL. We are going to approach usability essentially in 

four ways. One is incremental improvements that we have been 

making over time. One is when we release the permanent duty 

travel capability this fall, that is going to represent a major change 

in how users see the system for processing their PCS reservations 

and voucher. And then there will be two usability releases, one in 

fiscal year 2010 and one in fiscal year 2011 that will get larger. So 

for the fiscal year 2010 release specifically, our estimate at this 

point is that it will cost about $4 million. And that is a preliminary 

estimate, because a lot of analysis is still going on as to what that 

will really entail. I do not yet have an estimate for the second 

usability release. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. So those two usability releases then will 

fully implement these 39 recommendations and allow you to accomplish the objectives of those recommendations? 

Ms. MITCHELL. That is our intent, yes, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. And when you get the dollar amount on the 

second implementation of the usability function, if you could let us 

know that, that would be very helpful. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 86.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Another question is the Department told the subcommittee last year that it was performing a travel policy review 

in collaboration with the Government Services Administration 

(GSA) to look at the complexities of foreign travel, including the 

provisions of the Fly America Act. And I wanted to know has this 

review been completed? And if so, can you tell us about the findings? And in particular, were there any weaknesses identified in 

the Fly America Act that are allowing DOD passengers to fly on 

foreign carriers if they have U.S. partners versus foreign carriers 

who do not have U.S. partners but are less expensive? 

Ms. MITCHELL. First of all, that phase of the travel policy review 

is complete, and we are pending the final report from LMI. There 

were three major recommendations that came out of that, one, to 

create a framework for proactive policy development. And one of 

the things that I think is important for me to note is that this review was conducted in partnership with GSA and the State Department, which is the first time this has happened in several decades. 

For creating that framework, one of those things, one of the 

underliers there is to strengthen the governance process across the 

Department. And in fact, GSA has taken that on, and we do participate in some new governance boards that they have set up. 
13 

Another one is to enable data-driven business case development. 

And that goes back to my earlier comment about trying to move 

from anecdotal to empirical. And then lastly, to expand government-wide principles. For example, standardizing air travel and 

hotel standards across the government, as opposed to differences 

among agencies. Their second major recommendation was to simplify and streamline policy, to simplify reimbursements, and to submit a travel reform legislation package. We are actively working on 

both of those things in this currently phase two of the process. 

Their third major recommendation was to revise and standardize 

government-wide regulations across the agencies and across military and civilian. So those are the results of that review. In answer 

to your question about the Fly America Act, the group did look at 

that. And across the government, the consensus was that the Fly 

America Act probably does need some revision to enable government travelers to take advantage of the most effective and efficient 

travel available. 

So we are continuing to look at that as we look at the broader 

recommendations, and will consider that for inclusion in the reform 

package that we submit. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. So your recommendations as to how the Fly 

America Act should be revised to make sure that the most efficient 

use of funds and decision-making and travel can be implemented? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield the balance of my time. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Sanchez for five minutes. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, when we 

put up the DTS project it was really to standardize and to really 

be able to have people do end-to-end travel within the Department. 

Mr. Khan, is that really happening? Does this system really have 

the potential, in your opinion, to be able to do that? And how do 

we get from where we are right now using legacy systems and 27 

percent of the people off of the system to really having what my 

service members and others say go to the system and be able to 

get their travel done all sitting down at one point? 

Mr. KHAN. I mean the system certainly has the potential to be 

to handle end-to-end travel. However, based on our work, our concern is being able to capture what the user requirements are, 

which is going to give it the functionality to enable it to do that 

end-to-end travel. There are some deficiencies in how that information is captured and how the testing is proceeded with. So there is 

a risk that some of the user requirements may not end up in the 

functionality of the system. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I don’t understand what you meant by that. Can 

you explain more? Did you understand that comment? The 

functionality, how it would be caught in the functionality of the 

system? Explain to me what you mean by that. 

Mr. KHAN. By how the system is going to be used. That is based 

on user requirements. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. I see. Okay. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that 

for me. I was struck by something that you said, your second to the 

last sentence, and I didn’t get a chance to write it all down because 

I was listening to the question that the chairman had. You said 
14 

that we could save billions of dollars if we had standardization. 

What do you mean by that? And can you give us examples of what 

you are talking about in billions of savings if we standardized? 

What standardization? I thought that is what we were doing in 

DTS. 

Mr. KHAN. Right. That I mean was at the end of my statement 

was more meant across DOD itself, standardizing other business 

processes. But as far as it relates to DTS or the Defense travel, it 

is standardizing the process so it will eliminate the need for using 

legacy travel systems. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. And my last question to you has to do with 

unused tickets. Can you walk us through what did you find with 

respect to unused tickets? And what would be the solution to get 

those back into the system and get those credited? 

Mr. KHAN. That was a finding in our prior report in 2006. When 

tickets were purchased centrally and they were not used by the 

traveler, there was a possibility, and we did find evidence, that refund was not obtained by the Department itself. And one of our 

recommendations was that they put in controls so that if the tickets were unused there was a method to claim refund from the airlines. Based on our recent work, it appears that they have put in 

processes where the Travel Management Office or the Commercial 

Travel Office (CTO) will be able to generate reports and be able to 

claim this money back from the airlines. That is an intended policy, 

and I would defer to my friends from the DTMO and the BTA to 

confirm that. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Is that happening in your opinion? 

Ms. MITCHELL. That is correct. That is happening. Another important thing to note is that paper tickets are almost gone. And 

that really has been the larger source of the problem, because the 

paper ticket requires the individual traveler to turn that back in 

so that reimbursement can be processed. With electronic tickets, 

the CTOs are required by our contracts after 30 days—first of all, 

they can see what ticket has not been used through their systems 

and that they have no longer than 30 days to process those for refund. And we get regular reports from them so that we may check 

that. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. So on a foreign travel ticket you are no longer requiring that it be a paper ticket? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Well, unfortunately it isn’t up to us to request 

that. We prefer electronic tickets because we do have an automated 

means of tracking them. But there are some locations, I believe— 

and I will take this, but I believe Turkey, for example, still requires 

paper tickets. But for example, a recent check with the Commercial 

Travel Office providing support to Army indicated that less than 

one percent of all the tickets being issued to Army travelers were 

still paper. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Ms. Davis for five minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am sorry, I am 

going to have to leave right after this question. But Ms. Mitchell, 

I think one of the issues raised particularly by the GAO was how 

the legacy travel systems are actually funded, from what accounts 

they are funded from. I am not sure, I don’t think I heard your an-
15 

swer to that before. Can you be specific about that? Where are they 

being funded from? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Ma’am, I do not have the answer to that question. I will have to take it for the record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 86.] 

Mrs. DAVIS. Why don’t we know that? 

Ms. MITCHELL. They are not centrally managed. They are managed by the individual components who use them. And unfortunately, I would have to say that we are also frustrated in not being 

able to obtain the information in a timely manner. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there sort of a ballpark idea of where they are 

funded from, or is it just actual single line accounts? Mr. Khan, you 

looked at this issue. How do you think we, in your capacity, can 

try to get to that answer? 

Mr. KHAN. We were somewhat puzzled as well. We weren’t able 

to get the information how they were funded. We looked at the 

budget and some of the additional reports there are which DOD 

has, but we were not able to get any visibility as to how they were 

funded. I don’t have an answer for that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Do you have any thoughts about that, Mr. Fisher? 

Any thoughts about why that is so difficult to look at? Is there 

something inherently classified about that? 

Mr. FISHER. I honestly don’t know. It is beyond our purview and 

our role in managing the DTS program. So I don’t have any visibility into the other systems. Our focus is exclusively on the DTS 

system. So I don’t have any visibility to that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Okay. Thank you. One question would really be 

whether it is realistic or not for all travel to be consolidated within 

DTS. Is it realistic to do that, or are all the issues that you have 

identified as problematic, do they constitute an impossibility or— 

I still am having a little trouble, too, understanding why this 

doesn’t come together a little more easily. 

Mr. FISHER. So I believe—oh, I was going to give a suggestion 

that there will be some elements of DOD travel that it may not be 

cost-effective to build into the capability, the tool. We have had a 

discussion about PDT, permanent duty travel change. For the military, there is about 700,000 of those trips a year. That is a fairly 

significant number. And it is certainly cost-effective for us to implement that capability in the tool, and we are doing that this year. 

It will be released in the fall. Civilian PDT, which has different 

rules, would require a different set of requirements and implementation, there is only about 30,000 or 33,000, I believe of those each 

year. So the cost-effective element of that, what it would cost us 

to enable that capability in the tool versus the savings that we 

would have doesn’t put it on our priority list to get that done right 

now. 

I believe as Ms. Mitchell said, we will have 66 of the 73 trip 

types in place by the end of 2009. Of the balance, there is a couple 

that we probably won’t do because there are not enough of them 

to warrant the investment in the tool to automate that capability. 

But as we continue to add more trip types, obviously the expanded 

universe of travel that can be handled within the tool will expand, 

as will the savings will accrue. 
16 

Mrs. DAVIS. Mr. Khan. Because part of the question we are trying to get there by 2013, is that right, to try and eliminate most 

of the legacy systems? Mr. Khan, did you want to comment? I am 

sorry. 

Mr. KHAN. Our issue is kind of getting to the metrics itself. 

When we were doing the analysis we could not find a complete list 

of what the legacy systems were. So it was a big question as to, 

if there wasn’t an identified baseline of how many legacy systems 

were, then it would be difficult to say when they would all be put 

out of service. Like Ms. Mitchell did say—— 

Mrs. DAVIS. That would be difficult to do, I would agree with you, 

if you don’t know what they are. 

Mr. KHAN. Right. Like Ms. Mitchell did mention, they have sent 

over a list, and we will be having a meeting with them just to 

make sure that we understand what those existing 10 legacy systems she referred to there are. And then we can follow up from 

there. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. One other question just to follow up, Mr. 

Chairman. Is every attempt to do teleconferencing when it is possible? It seems today that there really are ways that we can get 

a lot of work accomplished without necessarily having—I just don’t 

know whether that is something that is pursued aggressively or 

whether it just doesn’t work. I mean obviously bringing people back 

from the theater, I mean there are a lot of reasons why you have 

to have people engaged in travel. But I am just wondering whether, 

you know, that is a fairly exhaustive question that happens before—— 

Ms. MITCHELL. We do know that teleconferencing does work, and 

it is used. But I would not be able to tell you to what extent. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. I wanted to continue this 

discussion that was continued by Mrs. Davis about the legacy systems. And Mr. Khan, do we know are any of those legacy systems 

managed by contracts, by contractors? Are they all managed by 

contractors? Are they in-house? Do we know? 

Mr. KHAN. I do not have this information. I can provide that for 

the record. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 85.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you know, Ms. Mitchell or Mr. Fisher, if any of 

the legacy systems are managed by contract? 

Ms. MITCHELL. No, Mr. Chairman, I do not know. 

Mr. FISHER. Again, I don’t have insight into those legacy systems. 

Dr. SNYDER. Now, you used that phrase a little bit ago, Mr. Fisher, about no visibility into the legacy systems. But if I am trying 

to put together a travel system and I have got a group of people 

that we think are in the several hundred thousand range that apparently are liking the other systems better, I would think you 

would want to get some visibility into those systems to find out 

what they are doing that you all are not doing. 

Mr. FISHER. Well, so let me characterize again an element of why 

some people aren’t using DTS. In many cases, it is because DTS 

does not yet provide the capability for those types of travel. 
17 

Dr. SNYDER. No, I understand that. I am not talking about those. 

I am talking about the ones that have the mandate that aren’t 

using it. 

Mr. FISHER. Again, our focus is on DTS and making that capability available. What is done in the legacy systems other than the 

capability, which we are cognizant of the types of travel that DTS 

doesn’t deliver yet, that clearly is something that is resident in 

some of the legacy systems. On the usability side, again, our intent 

is to make DTS the, as Ms. Mitchell said, preferred usage tool so 

that they are not only mandated to use it, they will want to use 

it. And that is our focus. 

Dr. SNYDER. Right. Mr. Khan, a number that we throw around 

is we think it is about a billion dollars a year or so that in the legacy systems. Is that a fair guesstimate? 

Mr. KHAN. We were not able to get any information—not a lot 

of information on how much was being spent on legacy systems. 

However, we do know—I mean, they need money to sustain and operate. And also the other concern is the use of manual voucher 

processing, which most of the legacy systems do require. I mean, 

that diminishes the cost savings. 

Dr. SNYDER. So most of the legacy systems use the manual voucher, which is about over $40 more per voucher to process? 

Mr. KHAN. About 35 approximately, correct. 

Dr. SNYDER. $35 more? 

Mr. KHAN. Right. 

Dr. SNYDER. Paid for by the taxpayer. It is perplexing. I don’t 

know how to get a handle on that. We are interested in the Defense Travel System, and you are saying that that is your area of 

expertise. It sounds like a lot of the inefficiency right now is in the 

legacy system side of it because they haven’t moved over to the 

DTS. Now you all have a responsibility to make the system available, and we have talked about that. But the longer—we are now 

saying 2013, another 4 years at $35-plus a pop wasted every time 

a paper voucher goes through, it just seems like that is a huge 

chunk of money, yet we don’t even know who these people, computer, some old remnant. I don’t know, it is the strangest dang 

thing I have seen around here. Maybe, Mr. Khan, you can get a 

handle on that. We may need to revisit this again here in the next 

month or two to try to sort this out. Because maybe it would be 

helpful to the DTS to try to sort out exactly who are these systems, 

who are these mystery people that we can’t even seem to get an 

accurate list of that seem to change day by day exactly what the 

list of them is. Did you have another comment, Mr. Khan? 

Mr. KHAN. I was going to say that as Ms. Mitchell did say, we 

did receive a list from them, which appears to be a pretty final 

scrub of what the legacy systems are. So we will continue with our 

analysis on that one. So that will help to answer some of the questions that you have. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Khan, when you do these calculations as the 

Government Accountability Office, formerly the General Accounting 

Office, does it enter into your discussions, and I will ask the same 

questions to you, Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Fisher, the amount of hours 

it takes or the amount of time it takes somebody sitting at their 

desk during work hours to work themselves through the system? 
18 

Has anybody done any studies on exactly how long it takes to do 

the system, the DTS system? 

Mr. KHAN. Our focus was more looking at the quantitative numbers itself as opposed to the time spent on processing. 

Dr. SNYDER. Dr. Moore, did you touch on that in your study? 

Dr. MOORE. For the samples when we surveyed, we do have statistics on that, how long it takes by various groups and for various 

tasks. But that is just a sample. It is not extrapolated. 

Dr. SNYDER. So what was it for the travelers what was it? 

Dr. MOORE. Let me look at that for you. The average time for updating and routing was 81⁄2 minutes. These are all in the minutes. 

And less than 10 minutes for the various tasks. 

Dr. SNYDER. So if somebody sits down there and they just found 

out they have to go somewhere it is about less than 10 minutes to 

put the whole trip together? 

Dr. MOORE. Well, that is for the individual components of the 

tasks. There may be two or three tasks associated with getting a 

trip together. So it could vary from somewhere—say between 10 

minutes and 20 minutes maybe total. Again, that is based on what 

we—the folks we tested. 

Dr. SNYDER. All right. Ms. Mitchell—I am sorry, my time is up, 

Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Moore, I want to 

follow up a little bit more on LMI’s study there and the 39 performance-based scenario recommendations that you all make. And you 

heard a little bit earlier Ms. Mitchell talk about phasing them in, 

and the first phase of usability and second phase of usability. Are 

you aware of if those phasings have been based on the importance 

of your recommendations or the ranking of your recommendations? 

And if not, would you make a recommendation as to which ones are 

most important in the phase of implementation? 

Dr. MOORE. We identified the ones that we thought were of the 

greatest hit value, and some of them, in fact, have actually been 

already completed. For example, one was the ability to cancel travel was quite difficult. And that was a quick fix. DTMO made that 

immediately almost on that. So that took one part of the problem 

out. And from what we know, and we have not been intimately involved in the scheduling of the activities, but of what we have seen 

on that, they have been based on the high priority ones that will 

provide the greatest benefit quickest. 

Mr. WITTMAN. So from what you know, you are in agreement 

with the implementation of those based on the ranking of importance? 

Dr. MOORE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Very good. Also in your study it recommends that DOD should encourage DTS users to prepare their 

own travel documents. And I was wondering if you found that reliance on legacy systems affected the traveler’s ability to prepare 

documents in DTS. And again, we go back to that whole issue of 

trying to get our arms around what is going on with legacy systems. Is there an artifact there that is, you know, holding people 

onto those instead of getting them over to the DTS system? 
19 

Dr. MOORE. There likely could be. We did not look at that in our 

study. Our study was confined to basically testing the specific 

functionalities of DTS. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield my 

time. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask—I am not going to ask a question 

about the legacy systems. You will be glad to know that. I wanted 

to ask about—I am not sure if it is a conflict in information or 

not—but in your-all’s written statement, Ms. Mitchell and Mr. 

Fisher, on page 7, you have a higher satisfaction reporting of—I 

guess 69 percent of DTS users find the system easy to use. This 

is your QuickCompass survey. Dr. Moore’s is a more negative 42 

percent. Would you describe for me, please, the QuickCompass survey? Is that something that people complete at the end of having 

done the process? Or what do you think of the 42 percent and, Dr. 

Moore, what do you think of their numbers? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The QuickCompass survey is a scientific polling 

methodology that is Web-based that is sent to a sample that is statistically set by the Defense Data Management Center. And it had 

a great return rate of 39 percent. It targeted a variety of travelers, 

from less experienced to more experienced. And we were, of course, 

very happy to see those numbers. 

But let me comment on what we think the difference is between 

those numbers and what we saw in the LMI survey. We wanted 

to do the LMI survey because we really wanted to find out the difficulties that people were having with the system if they were sitting in a lab environment, which essentially they were for the LMI 

study, unable to talk to fellow travelers, to Defense administrators, 

unable to call the assistance center for help. And so we have, I 

think, what is a very—it is not quite a sterile condition, but it is 

a more sitting by yourself trying to do something as opposed to be 

being able to reach out to others for help. So I would suggest that 

that accounts for the differences. But that is exactly what we wanted to target and to find out, because that helps us determine what 

we really can do to help travelers across the board. 

Dr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with that in our study 

was designed in conjunction with DTMO to provide probably the 

worst-case scenario in terms of determining usability. What I mean 

by that is the only assistance beyond looking at a screen that was 

available was the help function within the software. So there was 

no ability to call the help desk number. There was no availability 

to call co-workers or anybody else. So this was kind of the worst 

case situation where somebody was sitting in a room somewhere 

and they didn’t have the ability with a landline to get a hold of a 

help desk, nor could they ask anybody else. It is not surprising to 

me that the numbers would be higher if they were given some 

other capabilities. 

Dr. SNYDER. The sampling that was done, Ms. Mitchell, was that 

of people who had completed travel? What was the universe from 

which your sample was selected for the QuickCompass survey? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Travelers, yes. When I say ‘‘travelers,’’ I mean 

the universe of people. There may have been administrators, there 

may have been travelers, everyone who using the DTS system. 
20 

Dr. SNYDER. So if someone started with the DTS system and got 

ticked off and said the guy right down the hall is using this other 

system, he probably wouldn’t use the word ‘‘legacy system,’’ but I 

am going to use the one that the guy down the hall used because 

he said it worked better, that would not show up in your 

QuickCompass survey, would it? 

Ms. MITCHELL. It would not. 

Dr. SNYDER. The numbers are real numbers. This is in measure 

Khan’s statement that in 2008, the Army processed 1.5 million 

vouchers, 1.1 million were done by DTS, but 400,000 were not. The 

numbers are significant, and of that you acknowledged we don’t 

know of those 400,000 how many people would have had no choice 

to go through the legacy system, versus how many people DTS and 

got dissatisfied and went a different direction. Can that be a factor, 

too, in why your results are different from Dr. Moore’s? Or am I 

overreading your sampling? 

Dr. MOORE. I think the fundamental difference is there are the 

differences we talked about in terms of the ability to get assistance. 

But whenever you mix the other category of users, the 42 percent 

is just for travelers, it is not for the other three administrative 

functions. Those had higher success rates. If you put them all together, you come up with a blended rate that is higher. 

Dr. SNYDER. I wanted to ask, the 24-hour help line, what do you 

call that line? 

Ms. MITCHELL. It is the travel assistance center. 

Dr. SNYDER. The travel assistance center, how is that going? 

Ms. MITCHELL. That has been very well received. I would let you 

know that the one of the Air Force principals commented that it 

is the best thing that we have done. 

Dr. SNYDER. Who administers that? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The Defense Travel Management Office has oversight of it, and it is managed for us by Space and Naval Warfare 

Systems Command (SPAWAR), an element of the Navy. And it is 

contractor staffed, largely. 

Dr. SNYDER. Is there a call center somewhere that takes in all 

of the calls? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. The call center is located in Chesapeake. 

Dr. SNYDER. And how do you test the quality of the answers that 

they give? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Every call is recorded. They have a special system in place that does that. We are also down there frequently listening in. I have listened in to some of the conversations myself. 

I have been very favorably impressed. We also do a survey that we 

just implemented this past fall. It is not particularly scientific. It 

is giving folks the opportunity to comment. And again, the results 

have been very good. The reception has been very acceptable to the 

travel assistance center. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you. Mr. Wittman. 

Mr. WITTMAN. I wanted to follow up on some of the chairman’s 

questions. I will go back into some of the legacy systems questions. 

You talk about not being able to get your arms around where the 

legacy systems are still in use. Is there a way that we can get that 

information? Is it fragmented through different branches? How 

would we go about getting the information to get the full scope 
21 

where the legacy systems are being used and how they are being 

used so we can look at maybe trying to find a way to get our arms 

around phasing everybody into the DTS. So we are looking at 

whatever attributes are there in the legacy systems that we maybe 

ought to be putting in the DTS so we sort of push people towards 

the DTS system? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The legacy systems, we do know for the most part 

who is using them. And, for example, I can tell you that there is 

a system called WINIATS, that is a computation module, and it 

does process travel, and that is used by the Army, for example, as 

well as one of the other services and some agencies. But it also has 

additional modules that do other sorts of financial functions that 

I am not particularly familiar with. 

As I noted earlier, we have gone to the services and asked them 

to validate the list. We will certainly go back again and ask again 

and see if we can sit down with them and really get to fine level 

of detail on specifically what each system costs and where it is 

used. 

Mr. WITTMAN. I think that would be valuable to try to figure out 

exactly how the systems are used, why they are still in place, is 

there a lack of function with DTS that these systems are trying to 

replace, or is it just a personal preference? If we can maybe drill 

down and figure out those reasons, we might be able to actually 

start to get rid of those legacy systems. But the only way is to figure out where they are, how they are being used and why they are 

being used. That would be a great piece of information for us to obtain. 

I want to talk a little bit about premium travel and if DOD is 

able to identify when premium travel is used and when it is paid 

for by DOD versus when it is paid for by the traveler, in other 

words, if they have points to upgrade, and under what conditions 

does the Department authorize and pay for premium travel and 

how do you all audit and track when premium travel is used and 

how it is authorized to make sure that it is not being abused? 

Ms. MITCHELL. First of all, we do not have visibility as to when 

the Department pays. Well, we know when the Department pays, 

but we don’t have visibility as to who specifically upgrades using 

frequent flyer miles, for example. 

We do have a process in place. We receive information from the 

commercial travel offices to monitor who is flying premium travel, 

both first and business class, and we receive reports that enable us 

to do that. We are looking for more automated ways to do that. 

One of the big challenges that we have is the fact that there is no 

standardization of codes used by the airlines that indicate a premium travel seat. So that makes things very complex. And to add 

to that, the airlines over time change their codes. So we are looking 

at sort of almost what you can think of a carousel of codes to try 

to nail that down. 

We also have some tools in place for the services to note when 

they have approved premium travel. We take the feedback that we 

get from the commercial travel office, those reports, and we share 

them with the services and do a cross-check in that way to ensure 

that what the Department has paid for has in fact been approved. 
22 

You asked under what circumstances we permit premium travel. 

There are two really that are the largest ones. One is medical. 

Someone perhaps has a bad back and cannot make a 14-hour trip 

sitting in coach. We know it is hard enough for those of us without 

bad backs. And the second falls under the category of mission. 

There is a critical meeting that is going to occur, there is no coach 

seat available and the person has to fly in order to get to that 

meeting. Those are two primary examples. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my 

time. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Fisher, I wanted to ask one very specific question. Currently how many types of travel are there total? 

Mr. FISHER. There are 73 total trip types for the Department. 

Dr. SNYDER. And how many currently is DTS handling? 

Mr. FISHER. There are 27, and those were prioritized based on 

the volume. 

Dr. SNYDER. I think what you said was you are not going to get 

to all 73 because the numbers would be too small. Do you have a 

sense how many more you know for sure you are going to do? 

Mr. FISHER. We have plans to implement this year, we have a 

summer release that is going to add 34, so that will bring us up 

to 61 TDY. 

By the end of 2009, we will have 5 more are predominantly permanent duty travel for the military related to PDT which will bring 

us up to 66 of the 73. So by the end of calendar year 2009, based 

on our implementation plans, we will be at 66. 

There are a couple more that we are looking at, there is deployment travel and elements of deployment travel that are incredibly 

complex with lots of business rules. Those will not be done by 2009, 

it will be more 2010 time frame, and then you have the cats and 

dogs that may not be cost efficient. 

Dr. SNYDER. I appreciate all of you taking your time today. I anticipate that we will revisit this topic formally a year from now. My 

guess is that we will want to do something in the next month or 

two, or whenever we get more information about this legacy system. It seems like we have this billion dollar-plus hole that we 

don’t know anything about. So we will be in touch with all of you, 

particularly you, Mr. Khan, in terms if you are able to sort out who 

these legacy systems are, who manages them, how they are paid 

for and the total amount of money. The bottom line is we talked 

about the mandate which went out to all the joint chiefs and all 

the secretaries and everyone in authority saying you have to use 

the DTS system. And the reason they have said that is because it 

is $35 a pop per voucher when they don’t, and we still don’t have 

a handle on how many are not. Maybe that can help in some way. 

Thank you all for being here today. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. We 

are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

MARCH 5, 2009 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 5, 2009 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

MARCH 5, 2009 

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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

MARCH 5, 2009 

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1GAO, DOD Business Transformation: Status of DOD’s Actions on Previous Recommendations 

for the Defense Travel System, GAO–09–416T (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 5, 2009). 2 At a March 12, 2009 meeting, the military services stated that the following systems are 

used to manage travel—the Army (the Regional Level Application Software, the Army Orders 

and Resource System, the Automated Fund Control and Order System, and the Corps of Engineers Financial Management System; the Navy (the Naval Reserve Order Writing System, the 

Naval Facilities and Engineering Command/Enterprise Administrative Management Information System, and the Windows Automated Travel Order System and Automated Travel Order 

System Plus Afloat and Ashore, the Reserve Order Writing System; and the Air Force (Web Intensive New Gain System for ROTC, the Air Force Order Writing System, and the Reserve 

Travel System). 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Mr. KHAN. On March 5, 2009, I testified before your Subcommittee on the Department of Defense’s actions to implement our prior recommendations related to the 

Defense Travel System (DTS).1

This letter responds to a question that you asked us to answer for the record. The 

question and our response follow. 

Mr. Khan, are the legacy travel systems used instead of DTS managed by contractors or in-house at the Department? If managed by contractors, what are the costs 

of these contracts? 

Based on information they have provided us, all of the legacy systems used by 

the military services to manage travel, with the exception of one, are owned and 

managed by the military services.2 The one exception is the Windows Integrated 

Automated Travel System (WINIATS), which is a legacy travel system operated in 

house by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) to process manual 

travel vouchers. According to DFAS, a contractor owns the WINIATS travel management software program, but the federal government owns the data and the operating hardware. DFAS advised us that it had paid the contractor over $2 million 

in fiscal year 2008 for the right to use the software and incurred an additional $1.3 

million of in-house operating cost for a total annual system cost of approximately 

$3.3 million. The contract is a fixed-fee 1-year contract with four 1-year options. 

Currently, the contract is on an extension pending negotiation of a new contract for 

1 year (2009) with four 1-year options for renewal. 

As of April 1, 2009, the Navy confirmed that it owns the intellectual rights and 

hardware related to the four legacy systems it uses to manage travel—the Naval 

Reserve Order Writing System (NROWS), the Naval Facilities and Engineering 

Command/Enterprise Administrative Management Information System, the Windows Automated Travel Order System and Automated Travel Order System Plus 

Afloat and Ashore (WinATOS/ATOS), and the Reserve Order Writing System 

(ROWS). According to Navy, three of these four Navy systems—NROWS, WinATOS/ 

ATOS, and ROWS—are operated jointly by the government and contractor personnel. The Navy has not yet provided us the cost associated with contractor personnel operating three of their systems and the terms of those contracts. Further, 

we have not yet received information requested from the Army or Air Force regarding whether their systems are operated by government or contractor personnel, or 

both, the costs associated with systems managed by contractors, and the specific 

terms of the contract. In addition, based upon information provided by the Defense 

Travel Management Office, 35 of the 44 defense agencies and joint commands have 

stated that they are using DTS and do not have any legacy systems to manage their 

travel operations, as of April 7, 2009. Regarding the remaining nine activities, one 

defense agency—the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency—reported that they 

use WINIATS for civilian permanent change of station travel. In addition, the 

United States Transportation Command uses a system called the Global Air Transportation Execution System to support passenger and cargo movement on both chartered and military aircraft. The Defense Travel Management Office told us they are 

following up with the remaining seven entities to identify the specific systems used 

for processing travel. We will provide the Subcommittee staff with any additional 

information we receive from the department. If you or your staff have questions 

about our response to this question, please contact me. [See page 16.] 
86 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Ms. MITCHELL. The cost estimate for the second phase of the usability release will 

be available during the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2010. I will be happy to provide 

the cost estimate to the Subcommittee as soon as it becomes available. [See page 

12.] 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MRS. DAVIS 

Ms. MITCHELL. Defer to the Services for information on their legacy systems. The 

Service Secretaries have received individual letters from the Committee (attached) 

in this regard and will respond directly. [See page 15.] 

[The letters referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 75.] 
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

MARCH 5, 2009 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. The Department stated that to enhance the user-friendliness of DTS, 

it plans to implement two phased ‘‘usability releases’’ in 2010 and 2011. For the 

DTS usability release planned for 2010, the Department estimated that the cost 

would be about $4 million. What is the cost estimate for the second phase of the 

usability release, planned for 2011? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The cost estimate for the second phase of the usability release will 

be available during the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2010. I will be happy to provide 

the cost estimate to the subcommittee as soon as it becomes available. 

Dr. SNYDER. The shift from paper tickets to electronic tickets will help the Department decrease travel costs. What percentage of DOD travelers are currently using 

paper tickets? In what circumstances are travelers required to use paper tickets? 

Is there a Department policy mandating the use of e-tickets where possible? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Current use of paper tickets in the DoD is rare, affecting approximately 1.2% of travelers. Their use is necessary only when an airline does not have 

electronic ticketing capability, either because it does not exist for a particular destination or is temporarily unavailable because of airline ticketing system problems. 

Some examples include Algeria and Brazil where paper airline tickets are required 

for all in country travel, and paper tickets are required when traveling on Saudi 

Arabia Airlines as part of a code share agreement with Gulf Air. Airlines are working to resolve these challenges to achieve 100% electronic ticketing capability. 

There is no Department policy mandating the use of e-tickets. However, the Department’s commercial travel office contracts do stipulate that electronic ticketing 

is the preferred method of ticket issuance for DoD travelers. 

Dr. SNYDER. GAO’s scrutiny of the DOD budget revealed that only 3 legacy travel 

systems are identified in DOD’s budget. How many legacy systems are currently 

used by the Department and the Services, and what are the funding accounts for 

each of these legacy systems? 

Ms. MITCHELL. Defer to the Services for information on their legacy systems. The 

Service Secretaries have received individual letters from the Committee (attached) 

in this regard, and will respond directly. 

[The letters referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 75.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Significant cost savings can be achieved by using teleconferencing instead of travel where possible. What is the DOD policy on using teleconferencing 

versus travel? How is it enforced? 

Ms. MITCHELL. The Joint Federal Travel Regulations and the Joint Travel Regulations require consideration of alternatives to travel when the ‘‘mission can be 

achieved by some other means.’’ When a teleconference is deemed more cost effective 

than travel, the decision is made locally by the command and is based on mission 

need and availability of teleconference facilities. 

Dr. SNYDER. Are the legacy travel systems used instead of DTS managed by contractors or in-house at the Department? If managed by contractors, what are the 

costs of these contracts? Please provide a detailed explanation for each legacy system. 

Ms. MITCHELL. Defer to the Services for information on their legacy systems. The 

Service Secretaries have received individual letters from the Committee (attached) 

in this regard, and will respond directly. 

[The letters referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 75.] 

Dr. SNYDER. The Subcommittee staff requested that the Department provide cost 

information for DOD’s travel enterprise prior to the March 5, 2009, hearing. The 

Department informed the staff that the actual cost of DOD’s travel enterprise for 

fiscal year 2008 will not be available until the full President’s budget is released 

and Object Class 21 information is made public. The Subcommittee has access to 

non-publicly available information and requests that the cost information for fiscal 

year 2008 and fiscal year 2009 be provided immediately. 

Ms. MITCHELL. The figures below are preliminary. I will be happy to provide final 

figures when they become available. 

— Estimated FY 2008 spend for the travel and transportation of persons: $10.4 

billion 
90 

— Estimated FY 2009 budget for the travel and transportation of persons: $9.2 

billion 

Dr. SNYDER. Given the LMI survey finding that only 42% of travelers could successfully book a trip, there is an imminent need for the usability problems within 

DTS to be fixed. Please provide a detailed explanation for the plans to address the 

usability problems within DTS, including time frames. Also, how many of the 39 

system changes recommended in the LMI study has the Department already implemented? What are the Department’s plans to implement any outstanding recommendations? 

Mr. FISHER. The Department plans to address all 39 recommendations documented in the LMI Usability Review of the Defense Travel System (DTS). Two of 

the LMI recommendations have already been implemented. 

In concert with the LMI Usability Review, the Department identified a series of 

essential system improvements directly related to usability through an on-going customer initiated change request process. These change requests were prioritized, approved through the defense travel governance process, and targeted for release in 

February 2010. 

The LMI review, completed in October 2008, produced a set of 39 recommendations. Because DTS usability improvements were already underway as part of the 

usability improvement plan, the previously identified change requests and the 39 

LMI recommendations were jointly reviewed and streamlined (where possible) to 

take advantage of existing usability work and reprioritized to optimize the impact 

of the Department’s improvements to DTS usability. 

Based on the results of the review and reprioritization, the Department adopted 

a two-phased approach to improve DTS usability that includes both the customer 

change requests and the 39 LMI recommendations. The first phase, Usability I, focuses on enhancements to help prevent common traveler mistakes and is planned 

for release in February 2010. The second phase, Usability II, includes a redesign 

of the DTS user interface based on direct input from the DTS user community and 

is scheduled for release in May 2011. 

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