FEDERALLY OWNED 

VEHICLES

Agencies Should 

Improve Processes to 

Identify Underutilized 

Vehicles

Report to the Committee on Oversight 

and Government Reform, House of 

Representatives

April 2017

GAO-17-426

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-17-426, a report to the 

Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform, House of Representatives

April 2017

FEDERALLY OWNED VEHICLES

Agencies Should Improve Processes to Identify 

Underutilized Vehicles

What GAO Found

Federal agencies spent more than $1.6 billion to purchase approximately 64,500 

passenger vehicles and light trucks through the General Services Administration 

(GSA) from fiscal years 2011 through 2015. Five departments—Defense (DOD),

Homeland Security (DHS), Agriculture (USDA), Justice, and Interior—purchased 

90 percent of these vehicles, and spent a comparable percentage of the 

associated funds. The vehicles cost an average of approximately $25,600 each. 

GAO determined that the three agencies reviewed—Navy within DOD, Customs 

and Border Protection (CBP) within DHS, and Natural Resources Conservation 

Service (NRCS) within USDA—varied in efforts to determine if vehicles were 

utilized in fiscal year 2015. Navy determined that all of the 3,652 vehicles GAO 

selected for review were utilized by applying DOD and Navy criteria such as for 

mileage and individually justifying vehicles. CBP did not determine if 1,862 (81 

percent) of its 2,300 selected vehicles were utilized in fiscal year 2015 even 

though the vehicles did not meet DHS’s minimum mileage criteria. CBP officials 

stated that, contrary to DHS policy, CBP did not have criteria to measure these 

vehicles’ utilization because it was difficult to manually collect the data needed to 

establish appropriate criteria and assess if vehicles met those criteria. CBP is 

currently installing devices in many of its vehicles that will allow it to more easily 

collect such data, but lacks a specific plan for how to ensure these data will allow 

it to determine if vehicles are utilized. NRCS did not determine if 579 (9 percent) 

of its 6,223 selected vehicles were utilized in fiscal year 2015. USDA and NRCS

fleet officials stated that the agency did not annually assess vehicle utilization, 

nor did it apply USDA criteria such as mileage or days used. USDA and NRCS

officials said they were unaware of USDA’s policy requiring these steps because 

the policy had not been widely discussed or shared within USDA since 2012.

CBP and NRCS cumulatively incurred an estimated $13.5 million in depreciation 

and maintenance costs in fiscal year 2015 for vehicles with unknown utilization

(see table). While these costs may not equal the cost savings agencies derive 

from eliminating underutilized vehicles, without corrective action, agencies are 

incurring expenses to retain vehicles without determining if they are utilized.

Number, Percentage, and Cost of Selected Owned Vehicles That Selected Agencies Did Not 

Identify as either Utilized or Underutilized in Fiscal Year 2015

Agency

Number of 

owned vehicles 

selected by 

GAO

Number of 

selected vehicles 

with unknown 

utilizationa

Percentage of 

the agency’s 

selected owned 

vehicles

Estimated

cost to retain

vehicles, in 

millionsb

Customs and Border 

Protection 2,300 1,862 81 $12.7 

Natural Resources

Conservation Service 6,223 579 9 $0.8 

Navy 3,652 0 0 $0.0 

Total 12,175 2,441 20 $13.5 

Source: GAO analysis of agency-provided data. | GAO-17-426

a Selected owned vehicles for each agency in GAO’s review covered all passenger vehicles and light 

trucks, except those that were: 1) emergency responder vehicles, 2) law enforcement vehicles, 3) 

tactical vehicles, or 4) located outside the Continental United States, among other limited exclusions. b Costs (in nominal dollars) include maintenance and depreciation in fiscal year 2015. Depreciation 

costs are unrealized until the vehicle is sold.

View GAO-17-426. For more information, 

contact Lori Rectanus at (202) 512-2834 or 

rectanusl@gao.gov.

Why GAO Did This Study

Federal agencies spent about $3.4 

billion in fiscal year 2015 to keep and 

operate almost 450,000 federally 

owned vehicles. Each federal agency 

is responsible for determining 

utilization criteria and assessing 

vehicle utilization. GAO was asked to 

describe federally owned vehicles and

examine federal processes for 

assessing their utilization. 

This report, among other objectives: 

(1) describes recently purchased 

vehicles, and (2) assesses selected 

agencies’ efforts to determine if 

vehicles are utilized.

GAO analyzed government-wide data 

on approximately 64,500 light trucks 

and passenger vehicles purchased 

through GSA from fiscal years 2011 

through 2015, the most recent 

available. To assess utilization efforts, 

GAO selected three agencies (using 

factors such as fleet size), and 

reviewed agency utilization information 

on over 12,000 owned vehicles from 

fiscal year 2015. GAO also interviewed 

federal officials. These findings are not 

generalizable to all agencies but 

provide insight into the practices of 

agencies that procure thousands of 

vehicles.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that CBP develop a 

plan for how it will use its new data 

collection devices to establish criteria 

and assess vehicle utilization and that

USDA communicate its vehicle 

utilization policy to fleet officials. DHS 

and USDA plan to implement these 

recommendations.
Page i GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Letter 1

Background 4

Federal Agencies Spent Over $1.6 Billion in 5 Recent Fiscal Years 

to Purchase a Variety of Vehicles across the United States 7

Two of Three Selected Agencies Did Not Follow Policies to 

Identify Underutilized Vehicles, Spending Millions of Dollars on 

Vehicles without Determining Their Utilization 15

Officials from Three Selected Agencies Identified a Variety of 

Challenges to Managing the Costs of their Vehicle Fleets 20

Conclusions 24

Recommendations for Executive Action 25

Agency Comments 25

Appendix I Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 27

Appendix II Selected Agencies’ Procedures for Purchasing New or Replacing Existing 

Vehicles 36

Appendix III Vehicles Purchased by Departments with Selected Approved GSA 

Waivers from 2013-2015 37

Appendix IV GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 38

Appendix V Agency Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 39

Tables

Table 1: Departments and Agencies With the Most Owned NonTactical Vehicles, Fiscal Year 2015 4

Table 2: Quantity and Cost of Passenger Vehicles and Light 

Trucks Purchased By Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 

2011 through Fiscal Year 2015 9

Contents
Page ii GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Table 3: Selected Vehicle Options, by Total Number of Instances, 

of Vehicles Purchased from Fiscal Year 2011 through 

Fiscal Year 2015 12

Table 4: Waiver Requests and Related Vehicles for Fiscal Year 

2011 through Fiscal Year 2015, by Department or Agency 13

Table 5: Number, Percentage, and Cost of Selected Owned 

Vehicles That Selected Agencies Did Not Identify as 

either Utilized or Underutilized in Fiscal Year 2015 16

Table 6: USDA’s Minimum Utilization Criteria for Owned Vehicles 18

Table 7: Cost of Gasoline-Powered and Alternative Fuel Vehicles, 

in Fiscal Year 2016 21

Table 8: Passenger Vehicle and Light Truck Designations 30

Table 9: Vehicles Purchased with Approved GSA Waivers from 

Fiscal Year 2013 through Fiscal Year 2015 37

Figures

Figure 1: Passenger Vehicles and Light Trucks Purchased by 

Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal 

Year 2015, by Department 8

Figure 2: Spending on Passenger Vehicles and Light Trucks by 

Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal 

Year 2015, by Delivery Location 10

Figure 3: Vehicle purchased with a waiver submitted by Army 14

Figure 4: Vehicles purchased with waivers submitted by Customs 

and Border Protection and Veterans Affairs 15

Figure 5: Decision Tree Provided to the Three Selected Agencies 32
Page iii GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Abbreviations

AFV alternative-fuel vehicles 

CBP Customs and Border Protection 

DHS Department of Homeland Security 

DOD Department of Defense 

DOJ Department of Justice.

FAST Federal Automotive Statistical Tool 

4x4 four-by-four 

FPMR Federal Property Management Regulations 

GSA General Services Administration 

GVWR gross vehicle weight rating 

NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service 

ROADS Requisition, Ordering, and Documentation System 

SUV sport utility vehicles 

USDA Department of Agriculture 

VA Department of Veterans Affairs 

VAM vehicle allocation methodology

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. The published product may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety 

without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be 

necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately.
Page 1 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

April 25, 2017 

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz

Chairman

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings

Ranking Member

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

House of Representatives

In fiscal year 2015, the federal government spent almost $3.4 billion to 

keep and operate almost 450,000 owned vehicles, ranging from buses to 

compact sedans.1 Each federal agency is responsible for managing its 

vehicle fleet, whether the vehicles are owned, leased from the General 

Services Administration (GSA), or leased from a commercial vendor. In 

fiscal year 2015, federally owned vehicles accounted for slightly less than 

70 percent of the government’s vehicle inventory, and approximately 78 

percent of the fleet expenditures reported by agencies. In recent years, 

Members of Congress and the President have urged federal agencies to 

“right size” their fleets and manage costs; however, there is limited 

publicly available information on vehicles purchased by federal agencies 

and how those vehicles are utilized.2

As the government continues to seek opportunities to reduce costs, it is 

important to understand the methods agencies use to determine their 

vehicle needs and how their methods may affect the cost of federal fleets. 

You asked us to review data on federal vehicle purchases and agencies’ 

efforts to determine if their owned vehicles are utilized.3 This report 

1 For the purposes of this report, federally owned non-tactical vehicles under the custody 

and control of an agency are referred to as “owned” vehicles (with the exception of 

vehicles purchased by GSA’s leasing program (GSA Fleet), as such vehicles are leased to 

federal agencies and are not in the scope of this review). Non-tactical vehicles are 

commercial vehicles that carry passengers or cargo. All Department of Defense sedans, 

station wagons, vans, and buses are considered “non-tactical.” 

2 Some information on the composition of the owned vehicles in the federal fleet is 

available in the Federal Fleet Report, an annual summary of federal vehicle statistics that 

agencies submit to GSA. It provides an overview of federal motor vehicle data, such as 

number of vehicles agencies own and the costs to maintain and operate them. The 

Federal Fleet Report does not provide certain kinds of detailed information, such as 

vehicle make, model, or the cost of additional features.

3 We previously reported on the utilization of leased vehicles by selected federal agencies. 

See GAO, Federally Leased Vehicles: Agencies Should Strengthen Processes to Reduce 

Underutilized Vehicles. GAO-16-136 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2016). 

Letter
Page 2 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

addresses: (1) the types, locations, and acquisition costs of passenger 

vehicles and light trucks that were recently purchased by federal 

agencies; (2) the extent to which selected agencies identify utilized 

owned vehicles, if any, and (3) any challenges selected agencies 

reported facing in managing the costs of their owned vehicle fleets.

To determine the types, locations, and costs of vehicles recently 

purchased across the federal government from GSA,4 we analyzed 

government-wide data from GSA’s Requisition, Ordering, and 

Documentation System (ROADS) database on more than 64,500 nontactical passenger vehicles and light trucks purchased by federal 

agencies through GSA from fiscal years 2011 through 2015.5 These data 

include the options (i.e., changes from the standard model) that agencies 

selected for the vehicles they purchased.6 To identify what vehicles were 

purchased from a non-GSA source, we identified the 17 waivers that GSA 

approved from fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2015 that allowed 

agencies to purchase either a single vehicle or any executive fleet 

vehicles from these other sources, and we determined what vehicle was 

ultimately purchased with the approved waiver.7

To determine the extent to which selected agencies identify utilized 

vehicles, we selected three departments that had among the largest 

owned fleets in fiscal year 2015, among other criteria: the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and 

the Department of Defense (DOD). Then, within each of those 

departments we selected agencies that reported among the most owned, 

non-law enforcement passenger vehicles and light trucks. The agencies 

selected were Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within DHS; the 

 4 GSA is the mandatory source for purchase of new vehicles for federal executive 

agencies and other eligible users. See 41 C.F.R. § 101-26.501-1.

5 Fiscal year 2015 was the most recent, complete fiscal year that ROADS data were 

available at the time of our request. We determined that ROADS data were sufficiently 

reliable for our purposes after checking for outliers, reviewing missing data, and 

interviewing GSA officials, among other steps.

6 We analyzed 346 unique options by classifying them into six categories: efficiency, 

safety, economy, mission need, administrative actions, or undetermined. For the 48 

options that we placed in the undetermined category, we requested that GSA provide 

insight into the circumstances under which these options might be selected. 

7 We limited our analysis to waivers that were submitted by executive agencies. We 

focused on the last 3 years of approved waivers and did not assess the justifications 

agencies gave to GSA for needing these waivers.
Page 3 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) within the USDA; and 

the Navy within DOD. For each agency, we reviewed policies for 

assessing vehicle utilization and obtained information on selected 

vehicles in these agencies’ fleets as of September or October 2016.8 We 

then determined whether the selected agencies followed these policies, 

including asking each agency to identify whether or not selected vehicles 

met utilization criteria or had documentation to justify their retention, 

among other categorization requests.9 We analyzed the costs agencies 

reported paying for maintenance in fiscal year 2015 and the lost resale 

value (i.e., depreciation) agencies may have incurred for any potentially 

underutilized vehicles they did not identify and remove.10 We also 

interviewed agency fleet officials about their agency’s policies for 

assessing vehicle utilization. The experiences of these agencies are not 

generalizable to their departments or government-wide, but they do 

provide insight into the practices of several agencies responsible for 

thousands of federally owned vehicles.

To determine challenges selected agencies reported facing in managing 

the costs of their fleets, we convened two non-generalizable discussion 

panels of fleet officials with multiple representatives from each selected 

agency. We also reviewed information related to the issues raised in 

these discussion panels, such as the cost of alternative fuel vehicles, and 

interviewed officials from the headquarters of each agency. For more 

information about our scope and methodology, please see appendix I.

We conducted this performance audit from March 2016 to April 2017 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

 8 CBP and NRCS provided information as of September 2016; Navy provided information 

as of October 2016.

9 For the purposes of this analysis, we examined all owned passenger vehicles and light 

trucks that were not (1) emergency responder vehicles, (2) law enforcement vehicles, or 

(3) located outside the continental United States, among other limited exclusions 

described in appendix I. The vehicles used in our analyses and calculations are referred to 

as the “selected vehicles” throughout this report. The findings associated with the selected 

vehicles are not generalizeable to other vehicles at the selected agencies, their 

departments, or the rest of the federal government. 

10 We determined that the cost data (i.e., the costs paid in maintenance and the 

unrealized cost savings associated with depreciation) were sufficiently reliable for our 

purposes by reviewing agency maintenance data and GSA’s depreciation model; 

however, the maintenance and depreciation costs will vary based on vehicle age and

other factors. See appendix I for further details on cost calculations and limitations.
Page 4 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Federal agencies owned more than 446,000 non-tactical vehicles in fiscal 

year 2015, according to the Federal Fleet Report. Five departments 

owned approximately 89 percent of these vehicles, as shown in Table 1. 

Table 1: Departments and Agencies With the Most Owned Non-Tactical Vehicles, 

Fiscal Year 2015

Department Number of owned 

vehicles

Percentage of the total 

federal fleet

United States Postal Servicea 211,177 47

Department of Defense 65,180 15

Department of Homeland 

Security

43,770 10

Department of Justice 41,421 9

Department of Agriculture 34,030 8

SUB-TOTAL 395,578 89

All other federal agencies 51,118 11

TOTAL 446,696 100

Source: Fiscal year 2015 Federal Fleet Report. | GAO-17-426

a

The United States Postal Service is an independent establishment within the executive branch.

Agencies acquire vehicles through purchase or lease and are responsible 

for making decisions about the number and type of vehicles they need. 

Agencies obtain almost all of their vehicles through GSA. Specifically, by 

purchasing through GSA’s Vehicle Purchasing program or leasing a 

vehicle through GSA Fleet.11 GSA is a mandatory source for purchase of 

 11 We previously reported that while 8 of the 10 agencies we reviewed told us that they 

were analyzing lifecycle costs (i.e., the costs from the beginning to the end of vehicle 

ownership) to make lease-versus-ownership decisions, some agencies did not consider all 

types of costs in their analyses. GSA has since issued guidance to agencies regarding 

how these costs can be calculated. See GAO, Federal Vehicle Fleets: Adopting Leading 

Practices Could Improve Management. GAO-13-659 (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2013).

Background
Page 5 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

new vehicles for federal executive agencies and other eligible users.12

According to federal guidelines, when deciding what vehicle to buy, 

agencies should purchase vehicles that meet their mission and represent 

the best value by considering price, when the vehicle can be delivered, 

fuel economy, lifecycle cost, past performance, and other considerations. 

GSA Vehicle Purchasing offers an array of non-tactical vehicles and 

options at a savings from the manufacturer’s invoice price, including 

traditional vehicles (such as pickup trucks and sedans) and specialized 

vehicles (such as firetrucks and utility trucks). GSA develops annual 

vehicle standards that establish the types and sizes of vehicles and 

general equipment it will offer through the GSA Vehicle Purchasing 

program. GSA also maintains an on-line procurement tool—known as 

AutoChoice—that allows the purchasing agency officials to view the 

standard vehicle models, choose equipment options, view side-by-side 

comparisons of vehicle models from different manufacturers, place their 

orders, and track delivery.13 The order is then recorded in a GSA 

procurement database called ROADS. If GSA cannot meet an agency’s 

needs for a specific vehicle, agencies can apply to GSA for a waiver. If 

approved, agencies may then purchase a vehicle directly from a non-GSA 

source, such as a dealership.

In some cases, agencies are required to or directed to acquire vehicles 

with a lower environmental footprint. For example, the Energy Policy Act 

of 1992 requires that 75 percent of agencies’ light-duty vehicle 

acquisitions be alternative-fuel vehicles (AFVs).14 In addition, the Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007 prohibits agencies from acquiring 

any light-duty motor vehicle or medium-duty passenger vehicle that is not 

a low greenhouse-gas emitting vehicle.15 Executive Order 13693, issued 

 12 41 C.F.R. § 101-26.501-1. These regulations do not require certain vehicles, such as 

tactical vehicles, to be submitted to GSA for procurement.

13 GSA Vehicle Purchasing buys vehicles through the original equipment manufacturer 

and has contracts with the manufacturers’ representative dealers as well.

14 Pub. L. No. 102-486, § 303, 106 Stat. 2776 (1992). The Energy Policy Act of 2005 

requires that agencies use alternative fuels when available (defined as within either 5 

miles or 15 minute drive) and reasonably priced. Alternative fuel vehicles include those 

that run on E-85 (a blend of ethanol and gasoline), biodiesel, electricity, or compressed 

natural gas, among other fuel types. We reported in July 2013 that some types of 

alternative fuel are not readily available in certain parts of the United States. See GAO, 

Federal Vehicle Fleets: Adopting Leading Practices Could Improve Management, 

GAO-13-659 (Washington DC: July 31, 2013.)

15 Pub. L. No. 110-140, § 141 (2007).
Page 6 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

in March 2015, directed that agencies plan for zero emission vehicles or 

plug-in hybrid vehicles to make up 20 percent of all new agency 

passenger vehicle acquisitions by December 31, 2020, and 50 percent of 

all new agency passenger vehicle acquisitions by December 31, 2025.16

Agencies are responsible for managing their vehicles’ utilization in a 

manner that allows them to fulfill their missions and meet various federal 

guidelines and directives, such as by completing a vehicle allocation 

methodology (VAM). The VAM process is designed to help agencies 

identify the optimal size and composition of their respective fleets. Under 

GSA guidance, agencies are directed to complete a VAM survey, which 

measures the usage of each vehicle in the fleet, at least every 5 years. 

GSA guidance further advises agencies on how to complete the VAM 

process. For example, agencies are instructed to have standards for the 

minimum amount of use of a vehicle—called utilization criteria—that are 

appropriate for their missions. Agencies define their own utilization 

criteria—which may include mileage, number of trips, or other metrics—

and decide which vehicles, if any, to eliminate from their fleets.

Federal agencies determine when to replace or dispose of vehicles based 

on federal vehicle replacement standards and their mission and program 

needs. GSA has established minimum standards in federal regulations 

that call for agencies to retain agency-owned vehicles for at least a 

requisite number of years or miles before replacing them. For example, 

an agency should keep a sedan or station wagon for at least 3 years or 

60,000 miles, whichever occurs first. It may keep the vehicle beyond the 

minimum years and miles if the vehicle can be operated without 

excessive maintenance or substantial reduction in resale value. 

Conversely, the agency may replace a vehicle that has not yet met the 

threshold if the vehicle needs body or mechanical repairs that exceed the 

fair market value of the vehicle. Federal regulations allow agencies to 

dispose of vehicles they no longer need and have been declared excess, 

even if the vehicles have not met the minimum replacement standards for 

years and mileage. Agencies may dispose of vehicles by exchange, sale, 

transfer to another agency, or donation.

 16 Exec. Order No. 13693, 80 Fed Reg. 15871 (Mar. 25, 2015). Zero-emissions vehicles 

include electric vehicles. 
Page 7 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Based on our analysis of ROADS data, federal agencies spent more than 

$1.6 billion from fiscal years 2011 through 2015 to purchase a wide 

variety of vehicles though GSA. Included in the $1.6 billion is 

approximately $2.5 million that agencies spent on vehicle options such as 

power seats and remote keyless start. In less than 1 percent of purchases 

during this time frame, agencies received approval to acquire a vehicle 

from a source other than GSA. In those cases, agencies purchased a 

variety of vehicles that included ambulances and modified passenger 

vehicles.

From fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2015, federal agencies 

purchased 64,522 passenger vehicles and light trucks through GSA at a 

total cost of over $1.6 billion.17 Agencies used these vehicles to meet a 

wide variety of mission needs, including supporting operations on the 

U.S. border, transporting veterans, accessing remote locations, and 

hauling repair equipment, among other functions. The annual number of 

new passenger vehicle and light trucks purchased decreased from 

approximately 14,400 in fiscal year 2011 to approximately 13,300 in fiscal 

year 2015. See appendix II for information on selected agencies’

procedures for purchasing vehicles.

Five departments (DHS, the Department of Justice, USDA, DOD, and the 

Department of the Interior) purchased 90 percent of the vehicles 

purchased through GSA during this 5-year time period, and spent a 

comparable percentage of the associated funds.18 (see fig. 1).

 17 This total (in nominal dollars) includes costs associated with purchases made through 

GSA of new non-tactical passenger vehicles and light trucks delivered in the continental 

United States, as well as other areas. Some of these vehicles were marked for eventual 

export abroad. It includes Postal Service purchases and excludes purchases of GSA fleet 

vehicles to be leased to other agencies as well as vehicles purchased from a non-GSA 

source. This analysis does not include duplicate or incomplete vehicle purchase records, 

such as records with no associated vehicle identification number (VIN). According to GSA 

officials, incomplete data records can be the result of an agency initiating a purchase but 

not completing it or vendors not completing fields in some cases. This total includes a 1 

percent surcharge on vehicle price that agencies pay to GSA for their services.

18 In some cases, one agency (for example, Federal Prison Industries, also known as 

UNICOR, within DOJ) purchased vehicles on behalf of another agency (the ultimate 

customer). Where that was recorded, we associated the related vehicle records with the 

ultimate customer agency.

Federal Agencies 

Spent Over $1.6

Billion in 5 Recent 

Fiscal Years to 

Purchase a Variety of 

Vehicles across the 

United States

Federal Agencies Spent 

Over $1.6 Billion between 

Fiscal Years 2011 and 

2015 to Purchase 

Approximately 64,500 

Vehicles through GSA
Page 8 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Figure 1: Passenger Vehicles and Light Trucks Purchased by Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal Year 

2015, by Department

Note: Costs and prices are in nominal dollars.

The average purchase prices for passenger vehicles and light trucks 

among these five departments were relatively comparable, ranging from 

$24,163 to $28,101. Similarly, the average price for such vehicles 

purchased by other federal agencies in our analysis was $26,107. The 

most expensive of these vehicles was a cargo van purchased by the 

Department of Justice for $158,191 in fiscal year 2012, for use by the FBI. 

The least expensive vehicle was purchased for $11,855 in fiscal year 

2011 by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service.

Federal agencies purchased a variety of passenger vehicles and light 

trucks during this time period. Relatively large vehicles, such as pickup 

trucks, made up the majority of acquisitions and had higher average costs 

than sedans. For example, of the 64,522 vehicles purchased from fiscal 

years 2011 through 2015, four-by-four (4x4) pickup trucks and 4x4 sport 

utility vehicles (SUV) accounted for more than half of the purchases, while 

sedans accounted for about 15 percent. On average, these 4x4 SUVs 

cost approximately $7,600 more than a sedan, while 4x4 pickup trucks 

cost approximately $5,000 more (see table 2).

Federal Agencies 

Purchased a Variety of 

Vehicles for Use in 

Diverse Locations
Page 9 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Table 2: Quantity and Cost of Passenger Vehicles and Light Trucks Purchased By Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 2011 

through Fiscal Year 2015

Vehicle type Number of vehicles Percentage of 

vehicles

Total costa Average price per 

vehiclea

Pickup trucks (4x4) 20,642 32.0 $532.5 million $25,795

Sport utility vehicles (4x4) 15,955 24.7 $454.0 million $28,457

Sedans 9,683 15.0 $201.5 million $20,812

Police use vehicles 3,340 5.2 $82.1 million $24,570

Other vehiclesb 14,902 23.1 $379.7 million $25,481

TOTAL 64,522 100 $1.65 billion $25,570

Source: GAO analysis of GSA’s ROADS data from fiscal years 2011 through 2015. | GAO-17-426

a

Costs and prices are in nominal dollars.

b

The “Other vehicles” category includes 15 other vehicle types, including, for example, cargo vans 

and 4x2 pickup trucks and SUVs.

According to available data, at least 52 percent of the passenger vehicles 

and light trucks purchased during fiscal years 2013 through 2015 were 

capable of running on alternative fuel. Fuel type information was available 

for approximately 83 percent of vehicle purchases during that time.

According to GSA officials, the fuel type for a vehicle is not reported in the 

purchase data if manufacturers do not voluntarily specify the fuel type.

Manufacturers reported a fuel type for fewer than 10 percent of vehicle 

purchases in fiscal years 2011 and 2012. As previously discussed, a 

variety of laws and directives instruct agencies to increase their 

acquisition of low-greenhouse-gas-emitting, hybrid, or zero-emissions 

vehicles.

Agencies purchased vehicles during fiscal years 2011 through 2015 for 

locations throughout the continental United States and other areas. Some 

concentrations of spending were for vehicles delivered in and around the 

Washington, DC, capital region (see fig. 2). Another concentration of 

spending was for vehicles delivered in states such as Texas and 

California.
Page 10 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Figure 2: Spending on Passenger Vehicles and Light Trucks by Federal Agencies from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal Year 

2015, by Delivery Location
Page 11 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Each year, GSA publishes standards for vehicles, including what features 

will be included with particular base models. When making a purchase, 

agencies may change these standard vehicle features by selecting 

“options.” According to federal regulations, when agencies opt for 

additional systems or equipment to be added to vehicle purchases, these 

systems and equipment should be selected for purposes related to overall 

safety, efficiency, economy, and suitability (i.e., mission) of the vehicle.19

Based on our analysis of ROADS data, agencies added approximately 

350 different types of options to passenger vehicles and light trucks 

purchased from fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2015.20 In 

approximately 41 percent of the instances that an agency added an 

option to a vehicle, the option increased the vehicle cost. In approximately 

45 percent of instances, adding an option did not change the cost. In 

approximately 14 percent of instances, the selection resulted in a cost 

reduction.

In analyzing these options, we were not able to determine if six of these 

types of options were related to safety, efficiency, economy, suitability, or 

administrative functions.21 These six option types included power seats, 

video entertainment systems, and heated or leather seats, among others 

(see table 3). Agencies added at least one of these six options to 7,344 

vehicles (approximately 11.4 percent of the passenger vehicles and light 

trucks purchased through GSA during fiscal years 2011 to 2015) at a total

cost of over $2.5 million.22 In some cases, agencies added multiple 

 19 In some cases, agencies also add options to the vehicle for an administrative reason, 

such as specifying the delivery location.

20 Options appearing in the ROADS data reflect only those features that were actively 

selected by a customer purchasing a vehicle. According to agency officials, some features 

may have been bundled in with other option packages. For example, according to GSA 

officials, when agencies actively select a safety-related feature such as reverse obstacle 

sensor, the option associated with the reverse obstacle sensor may also include upgraded 

trim. Thus, the number of vehicles with certain specific features may be higher than what 

is reflected in the available data. 

21 We used a multi-step process to categorize options as being related to safety, 

efficiency, economy, suitability, or administrative functions. For details on our 

methodology, see appendix I. 

22 The cost listed for an option reflects the cost of that actively selected option as well as 

the cost of any additional option(s) that may have been bundled in automatically when the 

original option was selected. Since the selection of the original option results in the 

additional cost of the entire bundle of options in those cases, we have reflected those 

costs here.

Agencies Selected a 

Variety of Options when 

Purchasing Vehicles
Page 12 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

options to one vehicle. While these six options accounted for 

approximately 1.9 percent of all instances of options selected, they 

accounted for approximately 3.4 percent of the total cost of options. GSA 

does not determine for what purpose an agency may select a particular 

option. GSA officials discussed some instances of when these six options 

may have been related to the agency’s mission or could be considered a 

safety feature. For example, according to GSA officials, remote keyless 

start could be a safety feature when a vehicle is operated in an extreme 

climate.

Table 3: Selected Vehicle Options, by Total Number of Instances, of Vehicles Purchased from Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal 

Year 2015

Source: GAO analysis of GSA’s ROADS data from fiscal years 2011 through 2015. | GAO-17-426

Note: Vehicles include passenger vehicles and light trucks, but do not include busses, heavy trucks, 

or certain other types of vehicles.

a

There was no cost associated with 56 percent of powered drivers seats, 41 percent of remote 

keyless start, and 8 percent of heated or leather seats.

b

The cost listed for an option reflects the cost of the actively selected feature—such as leather 

seats—as well as the cost of any additional features that may have been bundled into the option 

automatically when the original feature was selected. Since the selection of the original feature results 

in the additional cost of the entire bundle of features (i.e., the option package), we reflect those costs 

here. All costs are in nominal dollars.

From fiscal years 2011 through 2015, agencies submitted 102 waiver 

requests to GSA, requesting permission to purchase a total of 

approximately 550 vehicles through non-GSA sources (see table 4). 

According to GSA officials, vehicles purchased with a waiver account for 

less than 1 percent of annual purchases in any given year. DOD 

submitted almost 40 percent of the 102 waiver requests. Cumulatively, 

the five departments—DOD, Interior, DHS, Veterans Affairs (VA), and the 

Department of Justice (DOJ)—submitted approximately 80 percent of the 

requests.

Option description Number of instances when 

an option was selected

Average cost per instancea Total costb

Powered driver’s seat 4,409 $293 $1,291,310

Remote keyless start 3,136 $358 $1,123,391

Heated or leather seats 38 $1,302 $49,476

Engine shut-down timer 33 $224 $7,407

Parking assist 15 $2,131 $31,966

Video entertainment system 6 $3,087 $18,524

TOTAL 7,637 $330 $2,522,074

Agencies Requested 102 

Waivers to Purchase 

Vehicles from a Non-GSA 

Source, GSA Approved 

about Half
Page 13 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Table 4: Waiver Requests and Related Vehicles for Fiscal Year 2011 through Fiscal 

Year 2015, by Department or Agency

Department or agency Number of waiver 

requests

Total number of vehicles 

requested

Defense 40 239

Interior 13 16

Homeland Security 11 43

Veterans Affairs 10 19

Justice 8 142

Energy 7 9

Agriculture 4 15

Environmental Protection 

Agency

3 6

Commerce 3 4

Peace Corps 1 Unspecifieda

Transportation 1 56

Smithsonian 1 1

TOTAL 102 550a

Source: GAO analysis of GSA’s waiver data from fiscal years 2011 through 2015. | GAO-17-426

a

Peace Corps did not specify the number of vehicles in its waiver request submitted to GSA.

In reviewing these 102 waiver requests, GSA:

• approved 56 (approximately 55 percent),23

• denied 32 (approximately 31 percent), and

• did not ultimately process the remaining 14 (approximately 14 

percent), in some cases, according to GSA officials, directing 

agencies to other services or letting them know a waiver was not 

required.

We selected 17 approved waivers from fiscal years 2013 through 2015 for 

additional review.24 For these 17 approved waivers, we found agencies 

 23 According to a GSA official, GSA does not collect or maintain documentation related to 

any vehicles that agencies purchase once GSA has approved a waiver.

24 We selected all waivers submitted by an executive agency that were for either a single 

vehicle or for executive fleet vehicles. Sixteen of these waivers requested permission to 

purchase a single vehicle and one waiver requested a pair of executive fleet vehicles.

Executive fleet vehicles are vehicles used primarily to transport Senior Executives (Heads 

of Agencies, Senior Executive Service (SES) employees, and General Officers). For more 

information on our methodology, see appendix I.
Page 14 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

purchased vehicles ranging from ambulances to passenger vehicles to 

dump trucks, with an average cost of approximately $117,000. See 

appendix III for more details on the vehicles purchased with these 17 

waivers. Some agency examples include:

• Army purchased a truck with a number of upgrades for $167,427, to 

be used for recruiting purposes, according to officials (see figure 3). 

Army officials noted that the upgrades contributed to its success as a 

recruiting tool, and that the truck was purchased as a replacement for 

six Hummers.

Figure 3: Vehicle purchased with a waiver submitted by Army

• DHS purchased a pair of leather-appointed Chevrolet Suburbans for 

approximately $67,000 each to transport the CBP Commissioner and 

dignitaries.

• VA purchased a minivan that was adapted to allow injured veterans to 

operate it, at a total cost of $50,515 (See fig. 4).
Page 15 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Figure 4: Vehicles purchased with waivers submitted by Customs and Border Protection and Veterans Affairs

According to federal standards for internal control, management should 

design control activities, such as policies and procedures, to achieve 

objectives and respond to risks. DHS, USDA, and Navy have policies 

aimed at achieving the objective of determining if vehicles are utilized and 

mitigating the risk of retaining vehicles that are not needed. However, as 

discussed below, we found that two agencies—CBP and NRCS—did not 

follow their respective departments’ policies for assessing vehicle 

utilization. Specifically, CBP did not assess the utilization of vehicles that 

fell below DHS’s mileage minimums, and NRCS did not use USDA’s 

utilization criteria or annually assess vehicles’ utilization. As a result, 

these two agencies could not determine if 2,441 of the 12,175 vehicles 

we selected (20 percent) were fully utilized. Cumulatively, these two 

agencies incurred an estimated $13.5 million in depreciation and 

maintenance costs for these vehicles during fiscal year 2015 (see table 

5).25 While these estimated costs might not be equal to the cost savings if 

all vehicles with undetermined utilization were determined to be 

 25 The estimated total cost includes aggregate maintenance and unrealized depreciation. 

Depreciation can be a “hidden” cost because the agencies do not actually pay for the 

vehicle’s depreciation on an annual basis. Rather, depreciation accrues and is realized 

when the agencies sell a vehicle, as depreciation represents the difference between the 

acquisition cost and the resale value of the vehicle. 

Two of Three 

Selected Agencies 

Did Not Follow 

Policies to Identify 

Underutilized 

Vehicles, Spending 

Millions of Dollars on 

Vehicles without 

Determining Their 

Utilization
Page 16 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

underutilized and eliminated, the amount provides insight into the 

potential scope of the issue.26 Based on our review of policies and 

agency-provided data, we found that the Navy uses criteria and 

justification processes to determine if a vehicle is utilized and was able to 

determine that all of the 3,652 vehicles we selected for our review were 

utilized.

Table 5: Number, Percentage, and Cost of Selected Owned Vehicles That Selected Agencies Did Not Identify as either Utilized 

or Underutilized in Fiscal Year 2015

Agency Number of owned 

vehicles selected by 

GAO

Number of selected 

vehicles with unknown 

utilizationa

Percentage of the 

agency’s selected 

owned vehicles

Estimated cost 

incurred to retain 

vehicles, in millionsb

Customs and Border 

Protection

2,300 1,862 81 $12.7 

Natural Resources

Conservation Service

6,223 579 9 $0.8 

Navy 3,652 0 0 $0.0 

Total 12,175 2,441 20 $13.5 

Source: GAO Analysis of agency-provided data. | GAO-17-426

a

Selected owned vehicles for each agency in our review covered all passenger vehicles and light 

trucks, except those that were: (1) emergency responder vehicles, (2) law enforcement vehicles, (3) 

tactical vehicles, or (4) located outside the continental United States, among other limited exclusions.

b

Costs include maintenance and depreciation where maintenance costs are the realized fiscal year 

2015 costs and depreciation costs are the unrealized costs to the agency in fiscal year 2015. Costs 

are in nominal dollars.

DHS’s fleet policy requires that agencies determine if their vehicles are 

justified. DHS defines a fully justified vehicle as one that either (1) travels 

a minimum number of miles per year (12,000 miles for sedans and 

10,000 miles for light trucks), (2) meets alternative vehicle utilization 

criteria developed by the agency to reflect their mission needs, or (3) has 

an individual written justification if the vehicle did not meet DHS’s 

minimum mileage criteria or any of the alternative criteria developed by 

the agency.

Of the 2,300 CBP vehicles that we examined, 1,862—81 percent—either 

did not achieve the DHS mileage utilization criteria or did not have 

sufficiently accurate mileage data to determine if the vehicle met the DHS 

 26 Costs incurred may not equal cost savings for a variety of reasons, including but not 

limited to the possibility that some of maintenance cost will be transferred to another 

vehicle if it is used more frequently following the elimination of an underutilized vehicle.

CBP Did Not Determine if 

81 Percent of Selected 

Vehicles Were Utilized in 

Fiscal Year 2015
Page 17 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

mileage minimums.27 CBP officials told us that DHS’s mileage criteria are 

not always an appropriate utilization metric for their diverse fleet. But CBP 

has not developed its own alternative criteria to determine if the vehicles 

that did not meet the DHS mileage criteria are utilized. While DHS policy 

instructs agencies to individually justify vehicles that did not meet DHS’s 

or agency-developed utilization criteria, CBP officials could not provide 

justifications for these 1,862 vehicles, and one official stated that CBP 

does not develop such justifications. CBP incurred an estimated $12.7 

million in maintenance and depreciation costs for these vehicles during 

fiscal year 2015. Because CBP did not determine if these vehicles are 

utilized, some of this cost may have been for vehicles that the agency did 

not need.

CBP officials explained that it would not be efficient or cost-effective to 

manually collect the data needed to establish criteria appropriate for CBP, 

such as “engine run time.”28 Furthermore, even if criteria were to be 

established, the lack of readily available data would make it difficult to 

measure vehicle performance against such criteria. However, officials 

stated that CBP has begun to install “telematics” devices in many of its 

vehicles.29 These devices can measure and transmit data on the vehicle’s 

use. CBP officials plan to have the devices installed in approximately 60 

percent of its fleet by March 2017. Officials reported that once these 

devices are fully deployed, a variety of new data points may become 

available, including engine hours and idle time. Officials stated that they 

have begun collecting data from the telematics devices installed to date to 

support the eventual development of appropriate utilization criteria; 

however, they have not yet developed a specific plan that outlines how 

they will use the data to develop appropriate utilization criteria and 

evaluate vehicles against those criteria. Officials also reported that while 

they intend to eventually install telematics on the remaining 40 percent of 

 27 We determined that extreme mileage values, such as 3 million miles traveled in a year 

or negative mileage, did not provide sufficient information to CBP to determine if the 

mileage criteria had been met. Thus, such vehicles would require individual justification.

28CBP officials explained that “engine run time” could potentially be an appropriate metric 

for vehicles that facilitate surveillance of the southwest border. For example, during the 

summer an engine may be running to provide air conditioning even though the vehicle is 

mostly stationary. However, to determine the criteria against which performance would be 

measured (i.e., how many engine run hours would be expected for a given time period), 

CBP officials explained they would need to benchmark the agency’s current engine hours. 

29“Telematics” are devices installed in vehicles that can provide data on speed, location, 

and other operation metrics.
Page 18 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

CBP’s fleet, there is currently no funding plan or timeline to do so, and 

CBP does not have a specific plan that details how it will assess the 

utilization of vehicles not equipped with telematics.30

CBP officials stated that given the large number of vehicles that did not 

meet the DHS mileage criteria, it was too difficult to develop individual 

justifications.31 If CBP developed utilization criteria that were appropriate 

for a large percentage of their vehicles’ missions, the number of vehicles 

requiring individual justifications could substantially decrease. In turn, this 

decrease in vehicles needing individual justification could facilitate CBP’s 

compliance with DHS’s policy that requires justifications for vehicles that 

do not meet utilization criteria.

A 2012 USDA policy memo requires that all vehicles be utilized. The 

memo specifies utilization criteria as either a function of mileage or days 

used, as shown in the table 6 below, although agencies can request 

changes to these requirements:

Table 6: USDA’s Minimum Utilization Criteria for Owned Vehicles

Type of vehicle Annual mileage Days used per year

Passenger vehicles 7,500 miles 80 days

Light trucks (<10,000 gross 

vehicle weight rating (GVWR)

5,000 miles 80 days

Medium trucks (10,001 to 

20,500 GVWR)

4,000 miles 60 days

Heavy trucks (>20,501 

GVWR) 

4,000 miles or 400 hours 60 days

Source: USDA’s Internal Vehicle Allocation Methodology Memo, 2012. | GAO-17-426

In addition to setting forth utilization criteria, the policy memo allows 

agencies to individually justify vehicles’ falling below the utilization 

minimums (for example, law enforcement vehicles or vehicles with a 

 30 According to CBP officials, the agency plans to collect data for one year and then 

assess telematics-equipped vehicles’ utilization, as well as make recommendations for 

utilization criteria; however, without additional action this effort would not address the 

utilization of vehicles without telematics devices.

31In fiscal year 2015, CBP owned 25,032 vehicles. Officials indicated that many of these 

vehicles, including and beyond those selected for this review, would not meet the mileage 

minimums.

NRCS Did Not Determine 

If 9 Percent of Its Selected 

Vehicles Were Utilized in 

Fiscal Year 2015
Page 19 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

unique mission). Furthermore, the memo outlines USDA’s expectation 

that NRCS and other agencies will annually identify vehicles that did not

meet the utilization criteria or have an individual justification documenting 

why the vehicle should be retained.

NRCS did not follow the USDA policies on annual utilization and 

justification because key officials were not aware of these policies. 

Specifically, all of the USDA and NRCS fleet managers we spoke to were 

unaware of this policy memo, which officials from USDA said had not 

been re-circulated since 2012. According to USDA officials, the utilization 

policy and the requirement for annual justifications were not widely 

discussed or shared. Thus, NRCS did not apply USDA’s utilization criteria 

to its vehicles to determine if the vehicles were utilized. In addition, NRCS 

does not have a process for annually justifying its vehicles. NRCS 

conducted a VAM survey, which agencies must conduct at least every 5 

years, in fiscal year 2015 (the year covered in our review). As a part of 

that survey, NRCS developed individual justifications for its vehicles. As a 

result, NRCS determined that 91 percent of the 6,223 vehicles we 

selected for this review were utilized.32 For the remaining 9 percent of the 

selected vehicles (579), NRCS was unable to determine if the vehicles 

were utilized.33 While the VAM survey provided justifications for fiscal 

year 2015, NRCS officials reported that they did not plan to conduct an 

annual VAM survey because the surveys cover every vehicle in the fleet 

and are resource intensive. If NRCS followed USDA policies on annual 

utilization and justification, the annual process would be less resource 

intensive than the VAM because the annual process would not need to 

cover vehicles that met USDA’s utilization criteria. NRCS retained all of 

the vehicles for which it could not determine if the vehicles were utilized 

and incurred approximately $750,000 in maintenance and depreciation 

costs in fiscal year 2015 for the 579 vehicles that were retained.

 32 While we did not examine each individual justification, we reviewed the processes 

followed by NRCS and requested a random sample of the justifications. 

33 Of the 579 vehicles, 553 were vehicles that the VAM identified as underutilized, but 

NRCS officials said VAM respondents may have misunderstood the survey directions and 

the vehicles’ utilization was therefore unknown. NRCS officials said that they have clarified 

the instructions and are deploying another VAM survey in fiscal year 2017 that will correct 

this issue. NRCS was not able to determine the utilization of an additional 26 vehicles.
Page 20 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

DOD has established criteria for minimum annual mileage (either 7,500 or 

10,000 annual miles for trucks—depending on vehicle characteristics—

and 12,000 annual miles for sedans). According to Navy officials, Navy 

has additional criteria to assess the utilization of each vehicle based on 

mission needs and has a process to annually review the usage and 

justification of one third of its fleet to determine if the vehicles are utilized 

and still needed.

Navy reported all 3,652 vehicles we selected for review met the DOD 

mileage criteria or had an individual justification in fiscal year 2015.

34

Navy has a process to individually review its entire fleet within a 3-year 

cycle even if some vehicles meet the DOD mileage requirements. These 

triannual justifications—known as the TRIO process—are considered 

valid by the Navy until the vehicles are reassessed again in 3 years. 

Through this process, each vehicle has its own requirement criteria and 

justification for retention. According to Navy officials, the TRIO process 

will be replaced by annual reviews within the next few years.

During panel discussions and individual interviews, fleet management 

officials from three selected agencies—CBP, Navy, and NRCS—identified 

several key challenges to managing the costs of their fleet. These 

challenges included alternative fuel vehicle requirements, fragmented 

data systems, and budget constraints.

Agency officials from CBP, Navy, and NRCS reported that the 

requirements for purchasing alternative fuel vehicles and using alternative 

fuel make it challenging to manage fleet costs. Some officials reported 

that complying with these requirements sometimes involves purchasing 

more expensive vehicle models. According to data from GSA’s 2016 

Model AFV Guide, in some cases acquisition costs for alternative fuel 

vehicles were substantially more expensive than the gasoline-powered 

 34 While we did not examine each individual justification, we reviewed the processes 

followed by Navy and requested a random sample of the justifications to verify their claim.

Navy Determined All 

Selected Vehicles Were 

Utilized in Fiscal Year 

2015

Officials from Three 

Selected Agencies 

Identified a Variety of 

Challenges to 

Managing the Costs 

of their Vehicle Fleets

Alternative Fuel Vehicle 

Requirements Can 

Increase Costs for Owned 

Vehicle Fleets
Page 21 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

model. For example, an electric-only sub-compact car costs 

approximately 82 percent more than the standard gasoline-only model. 

Similarly, the plug-in electric hybrid version of a subcompact car costs 

approximately 99 percent more than the gasoline-only model. However, in 

other cases, acquisition costs for alternative fuel vehicles were the same 

as those of their gasoline-powered counterpart (see table 7).

Table 7: Cost of Gasoline-Powered and Alternative Fuel Vehicles, in Fiscal Year 2016

Fuel type Price Vehicle type Manufacturer / 

dealer

Model Engine

Gasoline $14,645 Sedan/station wagon FORD FOCUS 2.0L, 4 cylinders

E-85 $14,645 Sedan/station wagon FORD FOCUS 2.0L, 4 cylinders

Electric $26,684 Sedan/station wagon FORD FOCUS BEV 0L, 0 cylinders

Plug-in hybrid Electric 

vehicle

$29,164 Sedan/station wagon FORD CMAX ENERGI 2.0L, 4 cylinders

Source: GSA’s Model Alternative Fuel Vehicle Guide, 2016. | GAO-17-426

Selected agency fleet management officials also reported that complying 

with AFV requirements involves installing and maintaining the 

infrastructure required for AFVs, a process that can be costly. For 

example, supporting AFVs can require electric charging stations, which 

agency officials reported to be costly and difficult to manage, given the 

outdated condition of some agencies’ facilities and the need to ensure 

National Electric Code standards compliance.35 In addition, one official 

noted that if an agency’s fleet involves a variety of different alternative 

fuel sources—such as E-85, electric vehicles, and compressed natural 

gas—the agency would need to incur the cost of developing and 

maintaining infrastructure that supports each type of fuel source if it is not 

commercially available. We previously reported similar findings related to 

the costs of alternative fuel requirements. Specifically, in 2013, we 

reported that some agency officials found commercial vendors to be 

reluctant to install alternative fuel tanks when the return on investment 

was not promising.36 In addition, we noted that agencies found it difficult 

to meet certain energy requirements in a constrained budget environment 

due to the potential for related additional costs.

 35 We previously reported on a similar challenge. See GAO-13-659. 

36 See GAO-13-659.
Page 22 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Officials from the three selected agencies also reported that 

administrative tasks associated with meeting AFV requirements can be 

difficult and resource-intensive. For instance, these officials reported that 

it can be time-consuming for fleet managers to ensure that drivers of 

dual-fueled vehicles, which can run on gasoline or an alternative fuel, use 

the required alternative fuels when reasonably priced and available, 

which is defined as within a 5 mile or 15 minute drive.37 Similarly, agency 

officials reported that completing paperwork associated with the AFV 

requirements can take up costly staff time. For example, one official 

stated that an agency’s mission may require the use of certain vehicle 

types—such as pickup trucks— that do not meet the Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007’s requirement to purchase only 

low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicles, resulting in the need for an agency 

to certify that no low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle is available to meet 

the functional needs of the agency. The official explained that it was very 

time-consuming for his staff to complete the required paperwork for each 

vehicle in the fleet that was not a low-greenhouse-gas-emitting vehicle.

Officials from the three selected agencies reported that limitations of their 

fleet management information systems—including manual data entry and 

recording fleet data in multiple systems—can lead to increased costs in 

the form of staff time and missed opportunities to analyze the available 

information. Officials also reported that efforts to address these limitations 

by adopting more sophisticated technology typically involve obstacles 

such as the complications associated with cybersecurity.

Officials for each selected agency said that their systems require the 

manual entry of some data, which is resource intensive. For example, one 

official said users needed to complete some forms by hand before the 

data were manually entered into the system. Officials also said users 

sometimes manually enter data in non-standard formats, which can 

increase the amount of time needed to analyze the data.

In addition, according to agency officials, when fleet data are recorded in 

multiple systems that do not communicate with each other, it requires 

more staff time to accomplish fleet management tasks. One official stated 

that in some cases, agencies within the same department may not use 

 37 42 U.S.C. § 6374(a)(3)(E).

Inaccurate and 

Fragmented Data Can 

Require Additional 

Personnel Resources
Page 23 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

the same data systems, a situation that complicates internal processes 

such as transferring a vehicle from one agency to another.

Several officials said that they are interested in adopting new 

technologies that have the potential to streamline the collection and 

improve the accuracy of fleet data, such as using scanners to collect data 

from bar codes. However, officials cautioned that it can be costly and 

time-consuming to adopt new technologies and integrate them into 

existing systems and processes. For example, an official within Navy said 

that his office paid a local vendor to run diagnostics on their vehicles’

engines —a costly process. In an attempt to minimize these costs, his 

office identified an available software program that could perform these 

diagnostics at a potential savings of $200–300 per test. The official said 

that as of October 2016 the Navy was 8 months into the process of 

evaluating the program for potential use. Similarly, officials from Navy 

reported challenges in adopting telematics. 38 Specifically, according to 

Navy officials, telematics have been installed in approximately 700 owned 

vehicles in Navy’s fleet, at an estimated cost of approximately $300,000; 

however, they have not yet been able to activate 674 of those 700

installed telematics systems due to cybersecurity reviews to ensure that 

the vehicles cannot be manipulated by outside sources. 39 Navy officials 

said that while telematics offer information that benefits some vehicles 

and missions, installing telematics in their vehicle fleets required a 

substantial initial investment.

`

Some officials said that when budgets are tight they retain vehicles that 

need to be replaced beyond the standard replacement timeframe of three 

years or 60,000 miles for sedans and station wagons, which can lead to 

higher overall fleet costs. Officials explained that maintenance costs 

increase as vehicles age, so the overall lifecycle costs of owning older 

vehicles is higher. According to the fiscal year 2015 Federal Fleet Report, 

 38 In 2014, we reported that experts had agreed that in some cases, telematics could 

facilitate cost savings by providing fleet managers with information needed to reduce fleet 

size, fuel use, misuse of vehicles, and unnecessary maintenance. However, telematics will 

not achieve cost savings for every fleet. The potential return on investment from adopting 

telematics will vary based on a number of factors, including cost of telematics technology, 

fleet characteristics, organizational support, and existing information technology systems. 

See GAO-14-443.

39 According to Navy officials, 240 telematics systems installed in owned vehicles were 

originally activated, but only 26 systems remained active as of January 2017.

Budget Restrictions Can 

Increase Fleet Costs
Page 24 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

the average age of owned passenger vehicles was 5.8 years for DHS, 5.4 

years for USDA, and 5.2 years for Navy. According to officials, some 

agencies perform vehicle lifecycle cost analyses which help determine 

when vehicles are no longer cost effective to retain, among other 

decisions. However, one official said they were not always able to replace 

vehicles when their analyses suggested the vehicle should be replaced 

due to budget constraints. Moreover, by using more of their fleet funds on 

maintenance, agencies have even fewer available resources to purchase 

new vehicles. Officials said that this cycle can make it challenging for fleet 

managers to contain costs. According to officials, to help address the 

costs of aging owned vehicles, Navy and NRCS are planning to increase 

their use of GSA-leased vehicles. An official from CBP reported that 

converting their fleet from owned to leased vehicles was generally not 

financially feasible because CBP installs mission-specific special systems 

and equipment and operates in conditions that would be likely to damage 

vehicles.40

Given the billions of dollars spent annually to operate and maintain 

federally owned vehicles and the government-wide emphasis on efficient 

fleet management, it is critical for agencies to have sound fleet 

management practices. The three departments in our review have 

established policies to appropriately use vehicles and facilitate the 

removal of unnecessary vehicles. Nonetheless, our finding that millions of 

dollars are being spent on vehicles that are potentially underutilized 

indicates action is needed.

Because CBP does not view DHS criteria to be appropriate in all cases 

for its diverse fleet and does not individually justify vehicles, CBP 

management cannot determine which vehicles, if any, are being properly 

utilized by CBP staff, and the agency may be spending millions of dollars 

on vehicles that are not needed. While new telematics devices are 

capable of providing vehicle usage information, CBP risks losing the 

opportunity to use these new data to identify and remove underutilized 

vehicles because CBP has not developed a plan to determine how it will 

use this usage data to improve its utilization assessment processes, 

including processes for vehicles without telematics devices.

 40 Agencies need to return leased vehicles to GSA with nominal wear and tear. Agencies 

may be charged additional fees for excessive wear and tear. Thus, according to a CBP 

official, it would not be cost effective to lease those vehicles. 

Conclusions
Page 25 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Additionally, because key NRCS and USDA officials were unaware of 

USDA’s policies on utilization and assessment, staff did not have 

necessary information to guide retention decisions for vehicles that cost 

more than $750,000 annually. Awareness of this policy would provide 

important information to NRCS officials to determine which vehicles, if 

any, may be underutilized and could be removed from their fleet. It is 

important for departments to ensure that all of their fleet management 

staff, including those in each agency within a department, are aware of 

and comply with departmental policies.

To facilitate the removal of underutilized vehicles, we recommend that the 

Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Commissioner of Customs and 

Border Protection to develop a written plan for how CBP will use newly 

available usage data to improve its utilization assessment processes. 

Such a plan would define utilization criteria that reflect CBP’s mission and 

describe how CBP will review and individually justify vehicles that do not 

meet the utilization criteria established by either DHS or CBP.

To enhance awareness of NRCS’s utilization assessment process and 

facilitate the elimination of unnecessary vehicles, we recommend that the 

Secretary of the Department of Agriculture communicate USDA’s policy

on vehicle utilization to USDA’s fleet management staff to ensure staff are 

aware of USDA policy. This communication could include redistributing

the 2012 utilization policy memo.

We provided a draft of this report to the departments of Agriculture, 

Commerce, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, and 

Veterans Affairs and to GSA for review and comment. The Departments 

of Defense, Energy, Justice, and Veterans Affairs did not have 

comments. The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland 

Security, and the Interior, as well as GSA, provided technical comments 

which we incorporated as appropriate. In its written comments, 

reproduced in appendix V, DHS stated that it concurred with our 

recommendation. A Program Analyst in the Office of the Chief Financial 

Officer provided emailed comments on behalf of USDA’s Office of 

Procurement and Property Management. In these emailed comments, 

USDA did not agree or disagree with our findings, but noted that the 

Department will address the recommendation.

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments
Page 26 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional 

committees, the Secretaries of the departments of Agriculture, 

Commerce, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, and 

Veterans Affairs, and the Administrator of GSA. In addition, this report is 

available at no charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact 

me at 202-512-2834 or rectanusl@gao.gov. Contact points for our Office 

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 

page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report 

are listed in appendix IV.

Lori Rectanus

Director, Physical Infrastructure
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 27 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

This report covers: (1) the types and locations of vehicles recently

purchased across the federal government and the associated costs; (2) 

the extent to which selected agencies determine what vehicles are 

utilized; and (3) any challenges that selected agencies face in managing 

the costs of their owned vehicle fleets.

To determine the types, locations, and costs of vehicles recently 

purchased across the federal government, we analyzed purchase data 

from the General Services Administration’s (GSA) ROADS database, the 

primary repository for information on vehicle purchase transactions.1

Specifically, we analyzed information on more than 64,500 passenger 

vehicles and light trucks purchased by federal agencies through GSA 

from fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2015 (the most recent, complete 

fiscal year at the time of the request), including information such as:

• the quantity of vehicles purchased;

• the type of vehicle, such as a pickup truck or sedan;

• the agencies that acquired vehicles;

• the cost of the vehicles purchased; and

• the location of where the purchased vehicles were delivered.

We also used the ROADS data to analyze the options that agencies 

purchased with these vehicles, as options provide additional insight into 

the characteristics of the vehicles purchased. Agencies selected 346 

unique options for the passenger vehicles and light trucks purchased 

during this 5-year time period. In order to describe the purpose of these 

options, we categorized the options into six groups. The first four groups 

were derived from the Federal Property Management Regulations 

(FPMR):2

1. Safety: We defined this category as options that serve to prevent 

collisions, vehicle or other damage, injury, or theft of the vehicle. This 

includes protecting occupants in the event of a collision and 

 1 We determined that the ROADS data were sufficiently reliable for our analysis after 

checking for outliers, reviewing missing data, and interviewing GSA officials, among other 

steps.

2 Federal Property Management Regulations provide that the selection of additional 

systems or equipment in new vehicles should be based on “the need to provide for overall 

safety, efficiency, economy, and suitability of the vehicle for the purposes intended.” 41 

C.F.R. § 101-26.501(e).

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 28 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

supporting the recovery of a vehicle if it is stolen. Lane-departure 

warning systems and backup cameras are examples of options we 

placed in the safety category.

2. Economy: We defined this category as options that remove features, 

or options that reduce the size, power, or features to be included in a 

vehicle. Reducing the engine size or eliminating air conditioning, thus 

potentially reducing vehicle’s cost, are examples of options we placed 

in the economy category.

3. Efficiency: We defined this category as options that could increase 

the fuel efficiency of a vehicle (including supporting use of alternative 

fuels) as well as options that facilitate vehicle maintenance and 

optimal operation (including reducing operating costs). An engine 

capable of running on compressed natural gas is an example of an 

option we placed in the efficiency category.

4. Suitability: We defined this category as options that could reasonably 

be determined to be necessary to accomplish an agency’s mission. 

Pre-wired police equipment is an example of an option we placed in 

the suitability category.

In addition, we created two additional categories:

5. Administration: We defined this category as including options that 

were related to the purchase, delivery, or warranty of the vehicle 

(such as the option to send a vehicle overseas).

6. Undetermined: We used this category to group options that did not 

meet any of the five defined categories, including options with unclear 

descriptions.

We then conducted a content analysis to categorize all 346 options into 

each of these categories. In order to conduct this analysis, two analysts 

independently coded each of the options into the six categories, and then 

met to discuss and resolve any coding discrepancies. After this initial 

categorization, 48 options were categorized as “undetermined”. We 

subsequently discussed our categorizations with GSA officials and asked 

them for any examples of why agencies might select these undetermined 

options for any of the other five categories. After reviewing GSA’s 

responses, we placed 38 of the previously undetermined options into one

of the five other categories. The remaining 10 options were still 

categorized as “undetermined” because GSA’s response did not provide 

assurance that the option belonged in one of the other five categories. 

For example, GSA replied that power seats could be selected for drivers 

with mobility impairments, but we found that agencies selected power 

seats over 5,000 times. Similarly, GSA suggested that remote keyless 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 29 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

entry could be a safety feature for vehicles operated in extreme climates, 

but it is unclear what climates would constitute “extreme”. When we 

randomly selected zip codes to determine where 10 of the vehicles with 

remote keyless entry were delivered, we found that they were delivered to 

Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia, among other locations. We 

subsequently reported the cost and frequency of these remaining options, 

combining some similar options (i.e., leather seats and heated front 

leather seats), which resulted in the six options we analyzed.

We also analyzed information on the number of waivers that agencies 

submitted to GSA during this time frame in order to purchase vehicles 

from a non-GSA source. We examined all 17 waivers that GSA approved 

from fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2015 for an executive agency to 

either purchase one vehicle or to purchase executive vehicles. For each 

of these waivers, we requested purchase orders and other relevant 

information from the agencies that received these waivers to determine 

what vehicles were purchased.

To determine how selected federal agencies identify what vehicles are 

utilized, we judgmentally selected three federal agencies for review: the 

U.S. Navy (Navy); U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources 

Conservation Service (NRCS); and U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP). We made our selection 

after considering the following criteria about their respective departments:

• among the largest owned fleets in fiscal year 2015,

• at least 10,000 non law enforcement designated vehicles, and

• a majority of domestic vehicles in their overall fleet.

We then selected the agencies from these three selected departments 

that reported among the largest number of domestic, non-law 

enforcement passenger vehicles and light trucks in response to a GAO 

request for this information. We selected these fleets to broadly discuss 

the experiences and practices across a section of the federal fleet. These 

results are not generalizable to their overarching departments or other 

federal agencies.

We reviewed the selected agencies’ policies on utilization and interviewed 

officials. To estimate the costs associated with potentially underutilized 

vehicles, we conducted a multi-step analytical process. First, we focused 

on a selected population of vehicles, which included:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 30 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

• light trucks or passenger vehicles, because these two categories 

comprise the majority of federal-owned vehicle fleets (approximately 

55 percent and 15 percent respectively);

• vehicles that are still in the selected agencies’ inventories as of 

November 2016; and

• vehicles that were acquired prior to fiscal year 2015, so that the 

agencies were fully accountable for the selected vehicles’ utilization 

over the entire fiscal year 2015 time period.

We defined passenger vehicles and light trucks using vehicle descriptions 

in GSA’s Federal Automotive Statistical Tool (FAST) database, as shown 

in table 8.3

Table 8: Passenger Vehicle and Light Truck Designations 

Passenger vehicles Light trucks

Low-speed Vehicle Light Duty Minivan 4x2 Cargo Use

Sedan/Station Wagon Subcompact Light Duty Minivan 4x4 Cargo Use

Sedan/Station Wagon Compact Light Duty Van 4x2 Cargo Use

Sedan/Station Wagon Midsize Light Duty Van 4x4 Cargo Use

Sedan/Station Wagon Large Light Duty Pickup 4x2

Limousine Light Duty Pickup 4x4

Light Duty SUV 4x2 Light Duty Other Vehicle 4x2

Light Duty SUV 4x4

Light Duty Minivan 4x2 Passenger Use

Light Duty Minivan 4x4 Passenger Use

Light Duty Van 4x2 Passenger Use

Light Duty Van 4x4 Passenger Use

Medium Duty SUV

Medium Duty Van Passenger Use

Source: GSA’s FAST information. | GAO-17-426

We excluded tactical, law-enforcement, and emergency-responder 

vehicles from the selected vehicle population as well as vehicles located 

outside of the continental U.S., due to the differences in reporting and 

management processes that can be associated with these characteristics. 

We also excluded vehicles that were procured through non-appropriated 

 3 Agencies annually report information to GSA through FAST; thus, the FAST categories 

are familiar to agencies. 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 31 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

funds, such as user fees, as any savings associated with eliminating 

those vehicles would not accrue to the federal government.

We then requested data from the three selected agencies on all of the 

relevant vehicles in our defined population. After receiving the data from 

the selected agencies, we conducted various diagnostic analyses of 

these data to assess their reliability and performed logic procedures to 

address obvious data issues. For example, we examined VIN numbers 

and acquisition cost values and removed any vehicles with errors from 

the population of analysis, removing approximately 12,900 vehicles in 

total across the three agencies.4 We received over 25,000 vehicle records 

from the three agencies that we reviewed for reliability and data issues, 

and 12,175 vehicle records met our selection criteria for analysis. In total, 

the selected vehicles from these agencies accounted for about 3 percent 

of the federally owned fleet. The findings from our analysis of these 

vehicle records are not generalizable to all vehicles at the agencies or to 

agencies beyond those we selected.

Next, we sent to each selected agency a list of their selected vehicles and 

requested that they group the vehicles into one of the categories 

described below and depicted in figure 5, so that we could determine how 

many vehicles were utilized, underutilized, or of unknown utilization. 

Specifically, groups 3, 5, and 7 reflect shortcomings in agency efforts to 

identify and remove underutilized owned vehicles. We focused on 

determining the costs associated with the vehicles in these groups.

 4 We removed any vehicles that appeared to have substantial data entry errors in order to 

ensure greater overall accuracy in our cost analysis assessment. However, approximately 

5,000 of these removed vehicles were out of scope of our original population selection 

criteria.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 32 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Figure 5: Decision Tree Provided to the Three Selected Agencies

Group 1: Vehicle must be a law enforcement, emergency response, or 

tactical vehicle or located outside of the United States or no longer in the 

agency’s owned inventory. These vehicles are excluded from our 

population of analysis.

Group 2: Vehicle must have met at least one agency utilization criteria, 

specifically defined in the agency’s policy or guidance documents in fiscal 

year 2015. This group did not apply to agencies that do not have 

utilization criteria written in their policy.

Group 3: The agency must have specific utilization criteria defined in 

agency policy or guidance documents AND be unable to determine 

whether the vehicle met this standard in fiscal year 2015. Example: The 

agency has mileage-based utilization criteria, but the mileage data are 

either missing or clearly incorrect (negative mileage).

Group 4: For this category, for the vehicle’s retention, there must be a 

written justification that was considered valid by the agency in fiscal year 

2015 in lieu of meeting criteria defined in agency policy or guidance. If the 

agency does not have utilization criteria, then the vehicles would need to 

have written justifications in regards to vehicle retention in order to be 

placed in this category.

Group 5: The agency is unable to determine whether there is a written 

record verifying that in fiscal year 2015, the vehicle’s continued use was 

justified and approved.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 33 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Group 6: Vehicle must NOT have met any agency utilization criteria for 

fiscal year 2015 (or there are no criteria in agency policy) that was 

specifically defined in agency policy or guidance documents, AND there 

was no written justification for the vehicle’s retention that was considered 

valid by the agency in fiscal year 2015. AND the vehicle was reassigned, 

repurposed, or given other tasks within the agency in fiscal years 2015 or 

2016.

Group 7: Vehicle must NOT have met, for fiscal year 2015, any agency 

utilization criteria (or there are no criteria in agency policy) that was 

specifically defined in agency policy or guidance documents, AND there 

was no written justification for the vehicle’s retention that was considered 

valid by the agency in fiscal year 2015. AND the vehicle was not 

reassigned, repurposed, or given other tasks within the agency in fiscal 

years 2015 or 2016.

Agencies were responsible for categorizing each of the vehicles. We 

provided the agencies with each vehicle’s VIN number, make, model, and 

other identifying information to assist in the process. We did not verify 

whether agencies categorized vehicles correctly as some of the 

information necessary for these categorizations was contained within 

agency systems and records (for example, if the vehicle met an agency’s 

defined criteria or if the vehicle was repurposed). However, to evaluate 

the overall reliability of agencies’ vehicle justification reporting, we 

selected a random sample of 20 vehicles from each agency that placed 

vehicles into group 4 and then requested the written justifications for 

those vehicles.

To determine the cost savings that could be achieved through the 

reduction of potentially underutilized vehicles (groups 3, 5, and 7), we first 

determined what factors drove cost for the selected agencies in managing 

their owned vehicles. After conducting agency interviews, we determined 

that the main drivers of cost for agencies were depreciation, 

maintenance, and fuel. While there are other drivers of cost, agency 

officials reported that they did not collect information on the indirect costs 

associated with owned vehicle fleets such as fleet manager salaries or 

the costs to garage the vehicles. Although fuel is a main driver of cost, 

any reduction in fuel costs by removing these underutilized owned 

vehicles would most likely be offset to a large extent by an increase in 

fuel costs for other vehicles in the agency’s fleet in order to complete the 

agency’s mission. Thus, we determined that potential cost savings of 

underutilized vehicles would be achieved through determining the 
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 34 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

aggregate depreciation—which represents foregone cost avoidance—

and maintenance costs for fiscal year 2015.

Agencies used different methods to calculate depreciation, so we used 

GSA’s simplified straight-line depreciation method to calculate a 

consistent average annual depreciation cost per vehicle for each agency. 

We asked each agency to provide the average capitalized value, average 

salvage value, and average useful life (in years) for vehicles in their 

respective fleets. We then used these values to calculate average annual 

depreciation per vehicle and multiplied that cost to the number of vehicles 

that were potentially underutilized. This calculation represented the total 

depreciation of all potentially underutilized vehicles in each agency’s fleet 

for fiscal year 2015. However, because vehicles typically have greater 

depreciation during their first few years in operation, the straight-line 

depreciation method underestimates the actual loss of value for relatively 

new vehicles but overestimates the actual loss for vehicles nearing the 

end of their useful lives. The actual total cost savings—in the form of 

avoiding loss of value—from removing vehicles is difficult to estimate 

because it depends on many factors specific to each individual vehicle 

such as age and model, and economic factors such as the fluid market 

value for used vehicles.

To calculate the total maintenance cost for potentially underutilized 

vehicles, we asked the agencies to provide all maintenance transaction 

records by vehicle for fiscal year 2015. While NRCS and Navy could 

provide this information, CBP could only provide an unknown percentage 

of their total fleet maintenance transactions.5 This response is due to the 

fact that 60 percent of CBP’s fleet has access to agency-owned 

maintenance garages. CBP does not record asset-level maintenance 

transactions for their agency-owned maintenance garages. To address 

this issue, we asked CBP to provide the total maintenance cost incurred 

to the agency in fiscal year 2015 as well as the total number of vehicles in 

its fleet for fiscal year 2015. After CBP provided this information, we were 

able to calculate its average vehicle maintenance cost for fiscal year 

2015, and we multiplied this average to the number of potentially 

underutilized vehicles in its fleet. Although the average per-vehicle 

maintenance costs are substantively lower for NRCS vehicles (groups 5 

and 7) than those of CBP, high maintenance costs are consistent with 

 5 We did not calculate maintenance costs from Navy because none of their vehicles were 

in groups 3, 5, or 7.
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

Methodology

Page 35 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

CBP officials’ statements that their vehicles drive in difficult terrain. Given 

the potential for harsh driving conditions, we determined that their 

calculated total costs are reliable for reporting purposes.

To gather information related to challenges agencies face in managing 

the costs of their owned vehicle fleets, we spoke with fleet management 

officials from our three selected agencies: Navy, CBP, and NRCS. We 

conducted two discussion groups with fleet management officials in 

October 2016. We recruited participants by requesting volunteers from 

each agency’s fleet management pool, and then judgmentally selected 

the eventual participants in order to achieve a balance of representation 

among all three of the selected agencies. A total of 17 fleet management 

officials participated in our discussions, with at least one representative 

from each agency in each group. We also conducted individual interviews 

with upper management officials from each of the three selected agencies 

to discuss the challenges agencies face in managing the costs of their 

fleets. Findings from our discussion groups and interviews, while 

illustrative, are not generalizable to the full population of fleet 

management officials at these three agencies or the federal government.

We conducted this performance audit from March 2016 to April 2017 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Appendix II: Selected Agencies’ Procedures 

for Purchasing New or Replacing Existing 

Vehicles

Page 36 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Natural Resources Conservation 

Service (NRCS), and Navy have various processes to add an additional 

vehicle to their fleet or to replace an existing vehicle, specifically:

• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) fleet policy requires agency 

fleet managers to submit an annual Fleet Management Plan to the 

DHS Fleet Manager. According to DHS officials, upon approval by 

DHS, agencies may purchase vehicles based on available funding, up 

to the maximum number of vehicles approved.1 When ordering a 

replacement for an existing vehicle, CBP officials are to its established 

vehicle replacement criteria (which include mileage and age 

minimums) and, according to officials, ensure at least one of these 

standards are met before replacing a vehicle.

• When ordering a vehicle, NRCS officials are to determine the 

appropriate type of vehicle to purchase within each state and request 

vehicle replacements or new acquisitions from a centralized office, 

called Personal Property Services (PPS). 2 PPS is responsible for 

purchasing all vehicles once the projected acquisitions are approved 

by USDA headquarters.3

• According to Navy officials, Navy is subject to Department of 

Defense’s purchasing guidelines as well as its own policies. To 

purchase a new vehicle, users must submit a requirement form with a 

written justification for the vehicle. The justification may include 

descriptions such as vehicle type, required mileage, and anticipated 

number of times the vehicle will be used in a day. To order 

replacement vehicles, users must assess and justify the continued 

need for the vehicle to be replaced.

 1 According a CBP official, CBP officials are not currently purchasing new, additional 

vehicles—i.e., increasing the fleet size— due to funding limitations. Rather, the purchases 

are replacements for existing vehicles. According to CBP officials, replacement vehicles 

are only acquired to offices adhering to vehicle reduction schedules or those that are at or 

below their established operating ranges.

2 According an NRCS official, NRCS officials are not currently increasing the fleet size. 

Therefore, NRCS’s acquisitions would consist of replacements, not additional vehicles.

3 USDA officials reported that while headquarters reviews and approves projected 

acquisitions, it does not currently approve actual acquisitions. According to officials, USDA 

is developing guidance to agencies for acquisition approval. 

Appendix II: Selected Agencies’ Procedures 

for Purchasing New or Replacing Existing 

Vehicles
Appendix III: Vehicles Purchased by 

Departments with Selected Approved GSA 

Waivers from 2013-2015

Page 37 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Table 9: Vehicles Purchased with Approved GSA Waivers from Fiscal Year 2013 through Fiscal Year 2015

Department Agency Vehicle purchased

Department of Defense Army

Army Corps of 

Engineers

• Transport Truck (Mack)

• Heavy Equipment Transport Truck (CT660S)

• Truck (Ford F650 Crew Cab XLT 4x4)

• Brush Fire Truck (Ford F550 Crew Cab 4x4 Truck, with bed 

conversion)

• Heavy Haul Tractor (T-30)

• SUV (Chevrolet Suburban)

• Passenger Van (Chevrolet Express 2500)

Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency 

Management Agency

Customs and Border 

Protection

• Ambulance (PL Custom Classic 170 Dodge 4500 4WD)

• (2) SUVs (Chevrolet 1500 Suburbans)

Department of Energy Western Area Power 

Administration

• Dump Truck (Hook Lift with Flat Bed and 8 Yard Dump Box)

Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Health 

Administration

• (2) Minivans (Dodge Grand Caravans)

• Ambulance (Ford E450)

Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife 

Service

• Truck (Toyota Tacoma, 4WD)

• Dump Truck (Mack Model GU713)

Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons • Passenger Bus (Turtle Top Odyssey XLT with Freightliner M2)

Department of Commerce • SUV (Ford Explorer Limited)

Source: GSA and agency-provided documentation. | GAO-17-426

Appendix III: Vehicles Purchased by 

Departments with Selected Approved GSA 

Waivers from 2013-2015
Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 38 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Lori Rectanus, (202) 512-2834 or rectanusl@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, John W. Shumann (Assistant 

Director), Alison Snyder (Analyst-in-Charge), Margaret Hettinger, Terence 

Lam, Jerome Sandau, Candace Silva-Martin, Michelle Weathers, Crystal 

Wesco, and Elizabeth Wood made key contributions to this report.

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments
Appendix V: Agency Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security

Page 39 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles

Appendix V: Agency Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security
Appendix V: Agency Comments from the 

Department of Homeland Security

Page 40 GAO-17-426 Federally Owned Vehicles (100749)
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