Fort Belvoir, Va. (March 13, 2014) - Fort Belvoir is serving as one of the test sites for the vehicle Dispatch and Reservation Module system, an online vehicle reservation system for the installation's fleet of vehicles.

The pilot program, which began in early January and will conclude in April, is part of the General Services Administration and Department of the Army's effort to appraise systems which will standardize and improve operations, according to Carlton Freese, Logistics Readiness Center transportation officer.

"They asked us to be a test site, which we were happy to do," Freese said. "We welcome that opportunity to test any system."

Under the current system at Fort Belvoir, users must fill out a paper request for a vehicle and operations administrators manually look through records to determine if a vehicle is available, according to Freese. However, DRM is designed to give users the ability to reserve vehicles online, which will take less time. Users simply have to stop by the LRC operations office to pick up their keys after making a reservation.

Fort Belvoir has a fleet of 400 vehicles, which is the largest fleet for an installation in the Washington D.C. area, according to Freese. This fleet includes sedans, pickups, mini vans, box trucks and buses.

Vehicle dispatches typically vary anywhere from one day to a month.

Terrence Packer, LRC transportation motor pool supervisor, said Fort Belvoir Community Hospital is the only unit that can reserve vehicles under the pilot program.

One of the system's advantages, according to Packer, is when a user reserves a vehicle, that vehicle is taken out of the motor pool. When the next user comes in, the reserved vehicle will not be seen as available.

"It eliminates having an overbooked situation," he added.

Packer said DRM has had a few problems so far and the reservation information could be funneled in a more organized way. That is important information that will be passed on to GSA and the Army.

Many installations are participating in the program, so those agencies will have plenty of different opinions on DRM, according to Freese.

"This is kind of like an added improvement," Packer said. "But there are still a lot of different gray areas with the system."

LRCs provide installation and Army logistics readiness. They integrate Air Materiel Command capabilities in support of commanders and installation tenants by establishing a single hub on post for customer access to the service's sustainment base. The Army has 73 LRCs in the United States, Europe and East Asia.

For more information about DRM, contact Packer at (703)-805-3751.