Defense Department to retire the Defense Travel System (DTS)

To paraphrase Star Wars, “it is as if millions of voices cried out in joy.”

In September 2021, the Defense Human Resources Activity awarded a production contract to SAP Concur. This contract allows SAP Concur to begin a phased rollout of the Defense Travel Modernization prototype across the Department of Defense.

This means the aging, costly, and highly frustrating Defense Travel System (DTS) will be retired, and a new program, MyTravel, will take its place. MyTravel is described as a “proven, always up-to-date, modern, state of the art travel application at reduced costs that empowers DOD travelers and authorizing officials to make travel decisions that benefit their organizations.”

The DoD began looking for a replacement for DTS back in 2017 when the Deputy Secretary of Defense established a cross-functional team to seek ways to improve the travel performance of the Department. Based on this team’s review, the DoD selected SAP Concur to create a travel system prototype called “Defense Travel Modernization prototype” or DTM.

DTM strove to reduce the process and workflow process, maintaining and enhancing audit readiness, improving customer satisfaction, reducing cost, and aligning to commercial/industry best practices. The rollout of the new MyTravel system will begin with various Defense Agencies before moving on to the multiple services.

The first military service currently slated to receive the new MyTravel system is the Marine Corps scheduled for late 2022, followed by the Army, Air Force, and Navy in 2023. As with anything in the government, these timelines are fluid and subject to change based on the various agencies ahead of them. DTS will remain as the default travel system until MyTravel is fully operational.

Bottom Line

DTS is to be retired and will start to be replaced at the end of 2022 and 2023. As someone who always had trouble getting his vouchers reimbursed due to the intricacies of the DTS system, I applaud the change and can’t wait to see how the new system works out.