New Licensing System Coming

Washington State residents with vehicle and vessel transactions due in December are urged to complete them by Friday, December 9. On Monday, December 12, the Washington State Department of Licensing will implement, statewide, a new state-of-the-art computer system for vehicle and vessel title and registration transactions.

The new system will replace a 30-year-old, text-based system with a modern system used successfully in several other states across the country.

The launch of this new system will have two notable customer service impacts before and after it is turned on December 12:

• Online vehicle tab renewal will be offline from December 6 until the new system is turned on December 12. Other vehicle-related online services, such as online filing of a report of sale, online vehicle or boat change of address, and other types of vehicle or boat online transactions or lookups, will be offline from the evening of Friday, December 9, until the new system is turned on December 12. 
• Following the launch on December 12, customers may experience longer wait times as licensing staff become comfortable processing transactions using the new system.

Customer Service staff at the San Juan County Auditor’s Office have been preparing for this launch for months. Each staff member has completed two online courses, as well as a two-day, in-person, hands-on workshop. For the two weeks prior to the December 12 launch, the office is able to work in both systems in tandem, in order to practice using the new system.

Nonetheless, a change to a new system will inevitably cause delays in processing. Auditor Milene Henley is asking customers for patience in the days immediately following the launch.

“This new system will ultimately be a great improvement in customer service. It will enable us to take care of transactions that we previously had to refer to Olympia, and to handle more transactions on a more timely basis,” says Henley. “But as with every system, processing will initially be slower, until staff become fully accustomed to the new system.”

Licensing customers can avoid longer wait times by taking care of renewals and title transactions at the Auditor’s Office by December 9, or online prior to December 6.

The new system, called DRIVES, is being rolled out in two phases between December 2016 and June 2018. The first phase replaces DOL’s obsolete vehicle and vessel titling and registration computer systems. The second phase, scheduled for June 2018, will replace DOL’s obsolete driver licensing systems.

When completed, the new DRIVES system will provide all licensing customers and business partners with better, more reliable systems and processes, provide more accurate records for law enforcement use, and allow for faster and easier system changes to support new or changing laws and business processes.

DRIVES Additional Q&A

What is DRIVES?

DRIVES is the name of the new computer system the Department of Licensing (DOL) and its agents and subagents will use to perform all vehicle and vessel titling and licensing transactions starting on December 12, 2016. This system rollout is the first of two planned rollouts. The second rollout, scheduled for the summer of 2018, will replace the state’s driver licensing computer systems.

Why is DOL replacing these systems?

The systems being replaced are old and obsolete, hard to use, difficult to modify to reflect changing laws and business needs, and are in danger of failing. The vehicle title and registration system in particular was introduced in the 1980s and is written in COBOL, a computer language that is difficult to support because of the limited pool of programmers who still know how to work with it.  

Did DOL build this new system?

DOL purchased what is known as a “commercial off-the-shelf” vehicle title and registration system from a vendor called FAST Enterprises and has worked with this vendor to configure the system to Washington’s unique needs. 

What other states are using the Fast Enterprises vehicle titling and registration system?

Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, New Mexico, and North Dakota

Why is this launch expected to disrupt vehicle registration services?

DOL needs to shut down the current system and migrate all of the records it contains to the new computer system before it can begin to be used to serve customers. The existing online services will be turned off on December 6 to ensure all of these credit card based transactions are fully processed before the old system is turned off. Vehicle licensing offices statewide will be closed on Saturday, December 10, to allow time to transfer all vehicle and vessel records into the new system.  

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