Some customers have been surprised and angered to discover the electronic appointment system at the Department of Motor Vehicles is no longer available.
But hang in there folks. It’s just temporary as the department moves to a brand new system that will have much more capabilities.
Alex Smith of DMV said that pilot test of the new Qmatic system is already up and running in the Galletti Way DMV office in Reno.
“It’s going really really well in Reno,” she said.
If all continues to go well, DMV hopes to have the new system running in Carson City in two to three weeks.
She said the old system was just not able to handle the needs of DMV customers and had issues that made many people mad. One of the problems, she said, was the old system didn’t have the ability to calculate appointments into wait times for people in the lobby. So a text message might tell someone sitting there 30 people are ahead of them but, 30 minutes later, it would say there are 31 people waiting.
“The perception for customers was that we were serving no one,” she said.
In fact, the system was just adding in those people with appointments to the queue.
The new system also has the ability to track how many customers are waiting for different services such as a drivers license or vehicle registration.
She said it has the ability to send people custom text messages that actually tell them what’s happening and will be able to take appointments for written testing which the old system couldn’t.
The Qmatic system is completely separate from the project that will completely replace and modernize the entire DMV computer system. The deadline for companies to submit bids for that contract was January 2.
“We will be aiming for vendor selection by the end of the month,” Smith said.
Then they hope to be at the Board of Examiners with a proposed contract in April so the work can begin July 1.
The project is projected to cost a total of $114 million over the coming five years.
The original contractor, Tech Mahindra, was fired a year ago after a series of disputes and problems. For DMV, the good news was it had spent just $13.5 million on the contract and officials say most of that was for hardware that can be used by a new contractor.
Unlike Tech Mahindra, which was designing a system from the ground up, Smith said DMV specified the new system will be something that has already been designed and successfully implemented in at least two other states.
“We’re looking for an off-the-shelf solution,” she said.