Creating Smart Bases With Smart Mobility: Unlocking Alternative Modes of Travel like Lyft, Uber and GM Maven

Brandon Newell
Jul 27, 2017 · 7 min read
Marine Corps Mobility Transformation Strategy

Lyft and GM Maven carsharing will soon be utilized aboard two Marine Corps bases to transport Marines for work. Innovative companies like these are poised to revolutionize how government employees travel, while reducing cost to the government and providing convenient solutions to the work force. Mobility Transformation is underway in the Marine Corps. Lets see if the rest of federal government can keep up.

Since writing my article, The Future of Mobility for Military Installations, I have become the Chair of the Mobility Transformation Working Group for the Marine Corps, as I detail in another article here. The Mobility Transformation Strategy is focused on utilizing demonstration projects on installations across the Corps to meet official business mobility with capabilities that are SMARTER, MORE EFFICIENT, MORE ACCESSIBLE, and CHEAPER. In the mold of the US Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge, the Corps is interested in nine vision elements that have the potential to transform mobility on installations. These vision elements are listed below.

Mobility Transformation Vision Elements

This article focuses on that first vision element, Mobility Services and the potential impacts it could have on official mobility. Mobility services refers to carsharing and ridehailing companies such as Zipcar, Maven, Lyft and Uber. As I detail in my “Future of Mobility…” article, the best way to open installations as a market for mobility services is to take a holistic look at mobility throughout the installation and combine official and personal mobility needs to present a healthy market. (See Figure below) I present “Lyft, Uber, GM Maven and the Potential Impacts on the Military Community” in a separate article here. The second step to opening installations as a market to mobility service companies is to align self-interests between that company and the business arm of the military service. In the Marine Corps, this would be Marine Corps Community Services (MCCS). Within the Mobility Transformation Strategy, MCCS is doing demonstration projects with mobility service companies aboard individual installations through revenue share contracts. This aligns the two in an effort to create a healthy market for ridehailng and carsharing.

Overlap of Official Mobility and Personal Mobility Benefits within the Mobility Transformation Strategy

Demonstration projects like these with MCCS and mobility service companies are part of a Collect, Analyze, and Share strategy. The intent is to collect data, analyze the impacts, and share lessons learned with all installations across the Department of Defense. These demonstrations fit into the Strategy as shown below.

Official Mobility Today

Today official mobility is essentially met by a single solution, non-tactical vehicles (NTVs). Below are statistics related to passenger NTVs at Camp Pendleton and Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar. Passenger NTVs are considered sedans, SUVs, passenger vans, and light-duty trucks ½ ton and below. These numbers exclude all special purpose vehicles such as utility vans, heavy-duty trucks, military police patrol vehicles, etc. Combined, the Marine Corps spends over $3.6M a year on nearly 750 passenger NTVs.

In addition to NTVs, a minor portion of official mobility is made up of “In/Around” transport by personally owned vehicles (POVs) or transportation services such as taxis. This use of personal vehicles or transportation services can be reimbursed if the unit chooses, through the Defense Travel System (DTS) via a Local Voucher (LVCH) by the unit. However, most units do not authorize reimbursement. Across the Marine Corps in FY16, there were over 24,000 LVCH with an aggregate reimbursement of $3.75M. That may seem like a lot, but considering there are 182k Marines. The number of LVCH is in the range of 1 out of 7 Marines submitting a single LVCH for the entire year. Needless to say, most Marines are not reimbursed. LVCHs will play a critical role in the future of official mobility, especially due to the Modernizing Government Travel Act signed in January of this year.

Modernizing Government Travel Act

The Modernizing Government Travel Act tasks the Government Services Administration (GSA) to “prescribe regulations…to provide for the reimbursement for the use of a transportation network company or innovative mobility technology network company by any Federal employee traveling on official business…”. Most think of this Act as applying to government travel away from your standard place of work. For example, when I travel for work out of the local area, I utilize DTS, which is administered by the Defense Travel Management Office (DTMO). Upon landing at my destination, I can request a Lyft ride to my meeting or hotel. After the trip is complete, I submit a travel claim through DTS and upload my Lyft receipt for reimbursement. This Act authorizes the use of Transportation Network Companies because they offer a cheaper alternative to taxis and rental cars.

Likewise, this Act also applies to local official mobility. It is the goal of the Mobility Transformation Working Group to collaborate with both GSA and DTMO to support “In/Around’ or local official mobility through a seamless process of claims and reimbursement. The Mobility Transformation Strategy creates the framework by which the Marine Corps, GSA, and DTMO can collaborate on innovation. Specifically, the pending Lyft demonstration aboard Camp Pendleton and GM Maven demonstration aboard MCAS Miramar brings all parties to the table to help highlight the realm of the possible and inform policy.

Update: GSA recently released a Sources Sought request around Ridehailing , also known as Ridesharing (see here).

Ridehailing Aboard Camp Pendleton

As previously detailed, MCCS and Lyft are negotiating on a short term revenue share contract to facilitate personal mobility at Camp Pendleton. The goal is to build a healthy market by growing supply and demand. Supply represents the available drivers and is focused on spouses, service members and retired veterans. Demand are the passengers again made up of the same demographics along with government workers. While personal mobility is what opens the door to MCCS and Lyft working together, the Mobility Transformation Working Group is looking to capitalize on that healthy market to explore benefits for official mobility.

To accomplish this, government workers and service members would setup a corporate profile alongside their personal profile within the Lyft app. When requesting a ride for official business, the corporate profile would be utilized. When submitting the travel claim, the individual would prompt a receipt from their corporate profile, upload it to DTS, and submit the LVCH. There are legitimate concerns about misuse of corporate profiles, but unlike taxis, TNC’s have many ways to support the government in verification. One such way is through geo-fencing. The government can work with the TNC to create geo-fences identifying that rides must originate and terminate within certain areas to give some assurance that the ride was for official business. Likewise time of the day for originating and terminating rides can easily be set as a data driven verification.

While the mechanics of requesting a receipt from the Lyft app and digitally uploading it to DTS for a LVCH, there is interest in working with DTMO to create a more seamless process in the spirit of the Modernizing Government Travel Act. Again the Mobility Transformation Strategy creates the perfect framework for DTMO and GSA to collaborate on this type of innovation.

Carsharing Aboard MCAS Miramar

Unlike the sprawling and decentralized Camp Pendleton, MCAS Miramar is a dense and centralized installation. It presents a unique opportunity to explore carsharing for official business within the Strategy. With barrack, living quarters, workspace, and retail all centralized in a small area, carsharing present a favorable opportunity. Again, a pending revenue share contract is being negotiated between MCCS and GM Maven. The revenue share aspect once again aligns self-interest to aggressively and effectively market the capability to the local military community. Within the Strategy, the Working Group will look to unlock carsharing for official business to complement and ultimately reduce the government fleet of NTVs.

Similar to Lyft aboard Camp Pendleton, the idea is to use corporate accounts and geo-fencing to facilitate official business use and verification. This again presents opportunities for GSA and DTMO to collaborate with the Marine Corps and an industry partner to innovate and craft policy.

Conclusion

The Marine Corps’ Mobility Transformation Strategy creates a framework and opportunity that could benefit all of DOD, the military community, and other federal agencies. By creating opportunity for joint collaboration in single demonstration projects, the Marine Corps can impact the entire federal government surrounding mobility. Official mobility need not have a single solution. Creating a market for revenue share based mobility services ensures the right incentives drive innovation and unlock mobility opportunities that are SMARTER, MORE EFFICIENT, MORE ACCESSIBLE, and CHEAPER.

About the Author: Major Brandon Newell is the Chair of the Marine Corps Mobility Transformation Working Group. He has 16 years as an active duty Marine, specializing in Communications, Energy Systems and now Mobility. He has a M.S and B.S. in Electrical Engineering. You can reach him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-newell-712b6793.

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