Global Transportation Network ratings soaring: GTN's next generation will get state-of-the-art e-business hardware and software.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Evaluation

In the Defense Departments transportation pipeline, people, weapons and equipment constantly are on the move, even during peacetime. Their steps are recorded in more than 2 million computer transactions each day. And that is just on "normal" days.

A Web-based system known as the Global Transportation Network helps the Defense Department capture the electronic movement of data. The rate of activity in the GTN skyrockets when U.S. forces are deployed for combat.

In the months preceding the war in Afghanistan, for example, the network averaged about 40,000 queries per month. "We saw this number double and then triple after September 11," said Air Force Brig. Gen. Gilbert Hawk, director of command, control, communications and computer systems at the U.S. Transportation Command.

A steady growth in the number of users and the increased complexity involved in the defense transportation system led to the decision nearly two years ago to upgrade GTN's hardware and software. This month, the Transportation Command was expected to award up to $200 million in contracts for the so-called GTN 21 project.

The genesis of GTN can be found in the Gulf War, when commanders experienced great pains trying to figure out "where's my stuff?" The Global Transportation Network was designed in the early 1990s, to provide in-transit visibility of individual or unit movements and supply or equipment requisitions, as they traverse the defense transportation system. GTN also allows port managers to view what's coming to their port over a specified time period.

"Whether in peace or war, GTN is used for these same purposes," Hawk told National Defense. "What we do notice, though, is that as we move from peacetime to wartime operations, the activity level against GTN changes," he said. "In peacetime, we see a large number of queries on individual supply or equipment requisitions supporting sustainment operations. ... As we transition to wartime operations, we see the focus changing to unit moves in support of force deployment.

Currently, GTN has more than 6,000 individual user accounts. These users range from installation-level transportation clerks to senior officials from the Joint Chiefs of Staff--and every level in between, such as the Unified Command staffs, Joint Task Forces, service headquarters and all echelons of command. To access GTN, all they need is an Internet connection and a Web browser.

The GTN, it should be noted, does not generate any data--it only...