Travel and Transport New England has partnered with Rearden Commerce to introduce a new standard for managing travel program spending. Including the traditional sourcing of airline fares, hotels and rental cars, Rearden has centralized all secondary service purchases – ranging from dinner reservations to package shipping – in a single Web environment, providing corporations unprecedented visibility and control over spend areas that have historically gone unmanaged.

Travel managers can select preferred suppliers, set policies, create outlay caps and/or approval processes, track purchase activity and assign what services their employees can purchase.

Employees can find, purchase and manage approved corporate travel and related business services. When an employee enters the marketplace, it turns into an online personal assistant, recognizing their identity, itinerary details and location and, based upon previous bookings, automatically recommends user-relevant goods and services.

Administrative tasks are simplified; booked itineraries are automatically loaded into the traveler's Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes calendar and invitations to colleagues for such activities as Web or audio conferences are automatically sent via voice, email or fax whenever a change is made to any booked reservation.