The Navy pilot allows servicemembers the option of either participating in the current program or of selecting their own carrier from a list of approved small business carriers. Key features of the servicemember arranged move include shipment location information, direct claims settlement with the carrier, full replacement value for lost or damaged household goods, and payment via the government charge card. Initiated in January 1998, the pilot included only shipments originating at Puget Sound, Washington, headed to San Diego, California; Norfolk, Virginia; New London, Connecticut; Pensacola, Florida; and Jacksonville, Florida. To increase participation, the pilot’s origin site was expanded from Puget Sound (including Whidbey Island and Everett, Washington) to include San Diego, Norfolk, and New London in July 1998. However, due to potential competition with another pilot that will also serve the Florida area, Pensacola and Jacksonville remain as destination sites only. The pilot does not have a specific end date; however, DOD established a target in the November 1997 Defense Reform Initiative Report to offer the Navy option to every servicemember by January 1, 2000. The Navy pilot is one of four quality-of-life initiatives DOD is pursuing to change the way it is currently doing business, adopt commercial business practices, and achieve quality moving services for military families. The other three pilots are described below. The Army’s pilot at Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia, which was initiated in February 1996, is a quality-of-life effort to improve the relocation process and to test commercial practices in a military environment. Services provided by the contractor include point-to-point move management with a single point of contact for the member, assistance in buying/selling a residence, full replacement value for lost or damaged household goods, direct claims settlement with the servicemember, and visibility of the shipment for approximately 1,400 annual moves. The contract will end on September 30, 1999. In January 1999, the Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC), which manages the current personal property program, began a pilot involving 50 percent of the moves in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida, which will total approximately 18,500 moves annually. Key features of the pilot include the selection of carriers based on servicemember satisfaction and past performance rather than on price alone; achieving stronger carrier commitment through long-term contracts; offering full-value replacement protection and direct claims settlement to users. The pilot is planned to run for 3 years, ending September 2002. DOD announced on February 12, 1999, that it intended to begin the Full Service Moving Project as a fourth test. This pilot would be similar to the pilot at Hunter Army Airfield, with modifications based on the Army’s lessons learned, and it would involve a larger number of moves (approximately 45,000 annually). The pilot would be tested in the National Capital (Washington, D.C.) Region, Georgia, and North Dakota. Like the Army pilot, it is intended to replace the existing program by using a contractor or contractors to provide both transportation and move management services. No official start date has been set for this pilot program. Status of the Navy Pilot As of March 1999, 223 servicemembers have participated in the pilot. In its second year of operation, the pilot has been expanded from one to four shipment sites. Program results thus far show (1) participation has been relatively low compared to the other pilots that are under way or planned, (2) servicemembers are satisfied arranging their own move, according to limited survey data, and (3) workload would increase for personal property officials because this option adds an alternative to the current program. As of March 26, 1999, a total of 223 members have participated in the pilot and 132 moves have been completed. Participation has been low, in part, because of the pilot’s short duration and eligibility restrictions. Although the Puget Sound office began to offer this option in January 1998, the other three sites did not offer it until late July 1998, and then only for Navy military members moving to one of six destinations. The pilot’s eligibility restrictions exclude civilians and members of the other services. Also, only certain types of domestic household goods shipments are eligible. The pilot excludes shipments of boats and mobile homes as well as shipments from non-temporary storage or from a mini-warehouse. Shipments must weigh at least 3,000 pounds and are expected to cost between $2,500 and $25,000. As of the end of calendar year 1998, the participating personal property offices reported interviewing 1,083 Navy members that were moving to or from the six pilot sites to determine whether their shipments met pilot eligibility criteria. Some 573, or 53 percent, of them had eligible shipments and 133, or 23 percent, selected the option. Over 90 percent of those determined as ineligible had household goods not weighing at least 3,000 pounds. Site officials reported that about 70 percent of eligible members cited the effort involved in selecting a carrier as the primary reason that they did not use the option (see table 1 for participant information by site). Navy officials have recently modified eligibility requirements to increase participation in the pilot. The major changes would increase eligibility by (1) reducing the weight minimum from 3,000 pounds to 1,000 pounds, (2) allowing boats, and (3) eliminating current restrictions to allow shipments to any domestic destination. To measure customer satisfaction with the pilot, the Navy uses a nine-question customer survey that servicemembers are asked to fill out and return after the move is completed. The survey includes questions pertaining to pickup and delivery time, loss, damage, and overall satisfaction. The survey asks, among other things, if the move was of a better quality than the servicemembers’ prior move and if the customer would (1) choose the pilot again, (2) recommend it to someone else, and (3) use the same carrier again. As of February 1999, the Navy had received 30 customer satisfaction surveys. These surveys are predominantly from the Puget Sound personal property office because Puget Sound was the first site to offer the pilot. Of the 30 surveys, 23 indicate that the pilot was a better quality move than other military moves. Eighteen of the 30 shipments (60 percent) had no claims, and 12 had a claim. Of the 12 claims made, only 2 exceeded $500. One of these claims was for $1,900 for broken china. Despite this damage, the customer responded that this was a better quality move than prior ones and stated that they would use the same carrier and the pilot again (see table 2 for selected survey responses). While the pilot offers advantages to the servicemember, it would add to the workload of the personal property officials who are responsible for the bulk of day-to-day program management. Among their additional duties, or duties that were previously handled by MTMC, are negotiating agreements with participating small business carriers, providing individual counseling to potential participants, maintaining up-to-date carrier information and performance data, and tracking customer satisfaction survey results. These are additional duties not previously handled by the personal property office. Local contracting officers at each participating installation enter into agreements with companies that offer acceptable discounts off of commercial rates. The agreements are entered into with companies that are self-certified as small businesses and on MTMC’s approved list. These agreements provide for the use of a government charge card for simplified payment and for direct claims settlement with the carrier at full repair or replacement value at no additional cost to the government. In addition, carriers are required to provide information on a shipment’s location through the use of a toll-free help line and a pager for direct delivery notification, which are designed to improve service and reduce storage costs. The personal property office provides servicemembers with the names of participating movers that have been determined to have reasonable prices. The property offices also maintain carrier quality books that contain a carrier’s performance history, the returned customer satisfaction surveys, and the carrier’s marketing materials. Participating servicemembers are required to contact at least three moving companies and document the basis for their preference of one of the carriers. The contracting officer can then make the selection considering both price and the servicemember’s recommendation concerning non-price factors such as quality. The award is made to the firm selected under the simplified acquisition procedures contained in Federal Acquisition Regulation part 13. The Navy does not plan to conduct an evaluation of the pilot program separate from its own evaluation. The U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) is currently in the process of developing and coordinating an evaluation plan with the services to evaluate the personal property pilot tests, and it will make a recommendation as to the follow-on course of action. In this regard, the Navy has modified its customer survey questions so that the survey questions match the USTRANSCOM survey questions. Navy officials are also accumulating pilot project transportation costs and developing a methodology to compare these costs with those that the government would have otherwise paid. Presently, the pilot has only been tested as an option to the current program at a few Navy sites and not as an option at the other pilot sites. The other pilots are designed to test an approach to replace the current program. However, the USTRANSCOM draft evaluation plan does not address the feasibility or potential benefits of incorporating the pilot option into the pilots that may replace the current program. Further, the evaluation plan does not directly assess the unique aspects of the pilot, which include limiting carrier selection to small business carriers and using the government charge card for payment. Consequently, DOD may not have the information it needs to craft a DOD-wide personal property program. Navy officials are concerned about several aspects of the USTRANSCOM evaluation plan. In March 1999, they stated that the data elements to be collected should be better defined, that a consistent evaluation time period should be established, and that expert advice should be sought.