In November 2003 three ETS contracts were awarded in response to the President’s management agenda for E-Gov Travel: CW Government Travel’s E2 Solutions (a nongovernment website), EDS’s FedTraveler.com (a nongovernment website) and Northrop Grumman Mission System’s GovTrip (a nongovernment website).
The advantages of the new E-Travel systems have been remarkable, with the consolidation of the payment process and the reservation modules, this has minimized the technology costs to the government and guaranteed better service and updates. The productivity of employees travel documents have been improved, from travel planning to reimbursement and as well as with the cost estimating capabilities on budget planning. Travel authorizations have a more detailed itinerary with the provided Government rates for services such as airline flights, hotel rooms (Fedrooms) and rental cars. Reservations are self-service and/or assisted reservation bookings that comply with appropriate federal and agency travel policies. The ETS reporting keeps the financial systems and data from travel reimbursements, centrally billed accounts and individually billed accounts connected.
Now with ETS access from anywhere at any time you can plan your federal travel from home, office, airport, hotel or even while you’re at the park. Also, authorizing officials can approve from anywhere as long as they have connection to the Internet. Replacing more than 250 different travel booking, authorization and financial systems the cuts in costs have and will save the government millions of dollars over the years. The new model aligns all GSA travel programs, including air, lodging and policy into an integrated platform of shared services to better serve travelers. Collaboration continues with chartered ETS User Groups that share deployment performance and functional experiences. This has enabled changes to the Federal Travel Regulation empowering agencies to actively manage and own their role in the transformation.
By: Debra Hardman
“The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bureau of the Government or my Agency.”