Defense Transportation

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the progress of the Department of Defense's (DOD) and Military Traffic Management Command's (MTMC) pilot program for the shipment of personal property, focusing on: (1) preliminary pilot results; (2) DOD's assessment of the industry proposal; and (3) MTMC's plan for assessing the pilot's results.

GAO noted that: (1) the preliminary pilot results are inconclusive, but do provide positive indications regarding the pilot program; (2) DOD's progress report included preliminary results that showed improvement over the current system associated with several of the pilot's goals; (3) DOD does not have sufficient data to reach a final conclusion regarding the pilot results; (4) during the first quarter of calendar year 2000, DOD plans to submit a subsequent report that discusses whether the pilot is superior to the existing system; (5) DOD completed its evaluation of the industry proposal and based on available information concluded that it was unlikely to achieve several of the pilot goals; (6) these unmet goals are to provide quality service, adopt corporate business processes, simplify the system, and provide best value moving services to the government; (7) therefore, DOD plans no further evaluation; (8) the methodology being used to evaluate the pilot program should provide a credible analytical basis for determining the success of the pilot; (9) MTMC's evaluation plan addresses most of the methodological weaknesses GAO identified in its earlier report; (10) one remaining issue is to establish baseline transportation and process costs; and (11) according to MTMC officials, the baseline costs will be finalized, evaluated, and reported in a report to be issued during the first quarter of 2000.