The size and cost of operating the federal vehicle fleet has been a subject of concern for many years. In 1986, Congress enacted legislation that required agencies, among other things, to collect and analyze the costs of their motor vehicle operations, including acquisition decisions, in order to improve the management and efficiency of their fleets and to reduce costs. Two years later, we reported that most agencies had not conducted the required studies. In 1992, an interagency task force identified obstacles to cost-efficient fleet management, including the continued lack of compliance with the 1986 legislative requirements, and stated that agencies lacked basic information to effectively and efficiently manage their fleets. In 1994, we reported, among other things, that successful fleet practices included oversight at the headquarters level to ensure that uniform written policies and guidance are provided throughout the organization and fleet management information systems to provide accurate data about the fleet. We also reported that agencies need to conduct periodic reviews to ensure their fleets are the right size and composition. The vehicle fleets at the agencies we reviewed are widely dispersed. For example, the Army and Navy operate vehicles throughout the world, while the Veterans Affairs fleet is spread across medical centers, national cemeteries, and other locations throughout the country. The approximate number of vehicles operated by the agencies included in our review is shown in figure 1. The Office of Governmentwide Policy within GSA develops policies, disseminated through the Federal Management Regulation, and bulletins for agency vehicle fleet management. Federal agencies, however, are responsible for managing their own fleets, including making decisions about the number and type of vehicles they need and how to acquire them. OGP also collects data from agencies via the Federal Automotive Statistical Tool (FAST) concerning fleet size, composition, and costs. Although GSA uses these data in annual reports to OMB on the government’s fleet size and costs, GSA officials told us that much of the data are inaccurate because of the different systems agencies use to collect and report information. The agencies we reviewed cannot ensure that their vehicle fleets are the right size and composition to meet their missions because of a lack of attention to key fleet management practices. In particular, agencies generally have not established policies with clearly defined utilization criteria related to the mission of a vehicle to ensure that decisions to acquire and retain vehicles are based on a validated need. In addition, agencies have not implemented periodic assessments to determine whether they have the right number and type of vehicles in the fleet. Some agencies have begun to recognize the need to pay more attention to fleet management and are taking steps to review their guidelines in an effort to provide better criteria to determine vehicle needs and to manage their fleets more efficiently. Industry practice for cost-efficient fleets includes establishing policies and procedures that contain clearly defined utilization criteria related to the mission of a vehicle. These criteria are then used to conduct periodic assessments of the fleet to identify underutilized vehicles. As previously noted, our 1994 report highlighted the importance of these fleet management practices. However, as shown in figure 2, most of the agencies we reviewed do not have clearly defined criteria and have not conducted periodic fleet assessments. We did not include DHS in this chart because the agency is still developing most of its fleet management guidelines, policies, and vehicle utilization standards. The lack of appropriate utilization criteria means that local level officials—who usually make the decisions to acquire and retain vehicles— are not basing their decisions on a validated need. Some agencies establish the number of miles traveled, such as the 12,000 miles per year in GSA’s guidance, as a criterion to measure vehicle utilization. However, this criterion is not appropriate for the mission of some vehicles, such as those used for utility work, medical transportation, or security. Therefore, agency officials often ignore mileage standards. None of the agencies assigned a value to other criteria, such as number of trips per day or hours on station, to measure vehicle use when mileage is not an appropriate measure. Following are some examples of cases we found where the application of specific criteria related to the mission of a vehicle would give local fleet managers a more accurate basis on which to make decisions about fleet size: At one Veterans Affairs medical center, vehicles are used to transport veterans from their homes to outpatient rehabilitation activities in a metropolitan area outside of Boston. Veterans Affairs officials told us that using only a mileage standard to justify the need for the vehicles is inappropriate because they are used within a confined area. The officials agreed that a better measure would be the number of trips or the number of veterans served. The Department of Defense prescribes that the military services establish utilization measures, such as passengers carried or hours used, to measure the need for a vehicle when mileage is not appropriate. However, neither Army nor Navy guidelines incorporate these types of utilization criteria. Natural Resources Conservation Service policy includes only one criterion to establish fleet size, which is a ratio of employees to vehicles. The definition of employees includes full- and part-time employees and volunteers, regardless of roles or job description. Further, agencies generally do not conduct periodic assessments of their fleets. Decisions about whether to acquire and retain vehicles are made at the local level with little or no headquarters oversight. These local-level decisions are frequently based on the availability of funds rather than on a validated need. For example, directors of Veterans Affairs medical centers and state conservationists at the Natural Resources Conservation Service determine whether or not to acquire vehicles based on the availability of funds. The Army allows local commanders to acquire vehicles with available funds without further justification within established allocation levels. However, these levels have not been reviewed since 1991, 13 years ago. The Navy and the Forest Service conduct periodic assessments of fleet size, but the results of the assessments are either not enforced or not conducted in a systematic manner. The Navy’s Transportation Equipment Management Centers (TEMC) conduct utilization assessments to recommend fleet inventory levels for Navy commands, yet the commands are not required to implement the recommended inventory levels. The Forest Service’s guidelines contain instructions for a systematic review of vehicle utilization at local sites, but these reviews are not consistently performed at the locations we visited, and the local sites are not required to report the results of the reviews to agency headquarters. Some agencies have begun to focus more attention on fleet management practices that they believe will improve the efficiency of their fleets. At the start of fiscal year 2004, the Army and Navy reorganized to centralize the management of facilities and equipment, including vehicles that are not related to combat forces, at various commands and installations. The Navy established the Naval Installations Command and the Army established the Installation Management Agency for this purpose. Navy and Army officials told us that these organizations should result in increased attention to fleet management, including the enforcement of the TEMCs’s recommended inventory level in the Navy and the revision of outdated vehicle allocation levels in the Army. Officials told us that these organizations will provide more centralized oversight of the Army and Navy vehicle fleets, but individual commands will continue to determine the need for vehicles within the established inventory objectives or allocation levels. At the time of our review, it was too early to determine the impact these reorganizations will have on improving fleet management practices. In addition, some agencies are reviewing their guidelines in an attempt to include more specific requirements for fleet management. For example, Veterans Affairs officials told us that they are developing a vehicle manual with detailed guidance on how to measure utilization and hope to issue it in the fall of 2004. Department of Defense officials are in the process of revising the department’s guidelines and are considering requiring the application of utilization criteria tied to the mission of a vehicle to determine the need for vehicles. In early 2003, DHS established a Fleet Commodity Council to review strategic sourcing issues, including how the department can leverage its purchasing power when acquiring vehicles. The council, made up of agency fleet managers, meets quarterly. In addition, departmentwide fleet management policies and guidelines are being developed and will include criteria for justifying and assessing vehicle fleet sizes. Our work and reviews by inspectors general identified numerous instances where agencies had an excessive number of vehicles in their fleets. If these vehicles were disposed of, agencies could realize savings ranging from thousands to millions of dollars, as illustrated in the following examples: In February 2004, the Department of the Interior’s Inspector General reported that a significant portion of the department’s fleet of approximately 36,000 vehicles is underutilized and estimated savings of $34 million. At the end of fiscal year 2003, Navy reviews of selected activities estimated fleet savings of $3.7 million per year if installations reduced their fleets based on recommendations from these reviews. In 2003, a U.S. Army Audit Agency report identified one Army garrison that had retained 99 excess vehicles in its fleet. A 2001 Veterans Affairs’ Inspector General report noted that accountability over the department’s owned vehicles at a medical center could not be reasonably assured. For example, agency auditors found one vehicle that had been parked behind a laundry facility and had not been moved since it was purchased in 1997. The report described the acquisition of the vehicle as unjustified. Appendix VII contains additional examples of reports that highlight potential savings if unnecessary vehicles were eliminated from agencies’ fleets. In other cases, locations have reduced their fleet size—primarily because of pressure to cut their budgets—and consequently realized savings, as illustrated in the following examples: A Navy command decreased its fleet from 156 to 105 vehicles over the course of a year, resulting in savings of about $12,000 per month. A Navy official explained that the decrease in vehicles was driven by cuts in the command’s budget. A Veterans Affairs medical center, in an effort to find potential savings, reduced its fleet by 12 vehicles, with estimated savings of about $57,000 per year. In the 1990s, a Forest Service region eliminated 500 leased vehicles when the agency reduced its workforce due to budget reductions, according to a regional official.