Defense Transportation

Because of long-standing concerns and problems associated with the relocation of military personnel, the Army began a pilot project in July 1997 to test an alternative approach to providing relocation services to its personnel stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia. GAO is required to validate the results and savings realized from this and any other personal property pilot program. This interim report provides (1) information on the data collected so far and (2) GAO's observations on how the Army plans to evaluate the data. GAO also provides information on other pilot tests that are underway or planned in the Defense Department.

GAO noted that: (1) through the first 6 months of operation, the Hunter pilot contractor had received and processed nearly 800 requests for transportation and relocation services, arranged for transportation of nearly 600 personal property shipments, and assisted Army members initiate another 200 do-it-yourself moves; (2) because many of the shipments had not been completed at the time of GAO's review, the Army had paid for only about 200 of these shipments, at a cost of about $500,000, but it was actively collecting data on all the factors--quality of life, cost, and impact on small businesses--it was planning to use in its evaluation of the pilot; (3) however, at the time GAO completed its work, the Army had not determined what it would consider successful within each factor or how much weight each factor would have in determining overall success; (4) specifically, the Army had not determined criteria to judge the success or failure of the pilot to help it assess whether the pilot was performing better or worse than the existing program; (5) making such determinations before pilot program data are analyzed would be important to enhancing the credibility of the Army's assessment and for use in making comparisons with other pilot programs that are under way or planned in DOD; (6) these include pilots under way by the Navy or planned by the Military Traffic Management Command; (7) also, DOD and the Army are considering expanding the pilot now being tested at Hunter Army Airfield to other DOD sites; (8) subsequently, in response to GAO's draft report, the Army provided it with new information on how it will determine the results of the pilot; (9) the information, with some minor exceptions, represents important steps toward formulating a sound evaluation plan; (10) however, the evaluation method has not yet been finalized or made a formal part of the evaluation plan, and questions remain about the definition of terms and small business group measurements; and (11) GAO recognized that further issues could be identified as the evaluation method is refined and finalized.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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