DMV's $277M upgrade of 1970s technology aims to reduce in-person visits
The renovated NYS DMV in Bethpage in July 2022. Credit: Barry Sloan
New software the state Department of Motor Vehicles is buying aims to shorten appointments, shift more services online and curb outages that have dogged the agency because of 1970s-era technology.
Those are some of the goals of a $277.6 million overhaul of DMV computers announced Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul's office to modernize a bureaucracy that regulates 20 million vehicles and 14.2 million drivers and permit holders.
The project is expected to take about four years, according to DMV spokesman Walter McClure, although there’s no set start date.
First to be rolled out: updating the computer systems for licensing and photo ID issuance for drivers and non-drivers, as well as administration and enforcement of traffic violations. Next: vehicle registrations, title issuance and insurance verification services, said McClure, who provided details of the project’s goals.
Each of these phases is expected to take about two years.
“Computer and system outages that have caused delays and long lines in DMV offices will become a thing of the past with the introduction of modern applications and proven successful solutions,” Hochul's office said in a news release. Paper forms would be eliminated where possible, the release said.
Motor vehicle agencies first digitized in the 1970s, when large computer networks were first being established, according to Ian Grossman, president and chief executive of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. About 70% of the agencies in North America have upgraded from that era and the balance is in the process of upgrading, he said.
He said the public had grown accustomed to transacting its business online, without having to go into a physical office as in the past.
“The pandemic furthered the expectations of individuals to be able to receive and interact with services in an online and a touchless transaction,” said Grossman, a native of Middle Island who took his road test in central Suffolk in the early 1990s when the DMV still largely operated with paper forms.
New York's contract is with FAST Enterprises LLC of Centennial, Colorado, which has been hired by governments across the country to modernize systems for taxes, child support and motor vehicle bureaus.
Frank Dean, a client services representative for FAST, said that the company's contract with New York State prohibited him from speaking to the press about this specific project but pointed to an article in Move Magazine, about the same software FAST helped install in Montana.
The company has successfully installed the software — called FastDS-VS — in 20 states, according to Dean.
Once implemented, the software makes it easier for the public to conduct DMV business via computer, cellphone and texting if the jurisdiction chooses to turn on those features, he said.
The article about Montana said because of the system calls to that state's customer service line dropped by 30% and the average examiner was able to see two more people per day taking written or road tests.
Transaction times dropped to an average of eight minutes from 22, and the wait time in some offices for written or driving tests dropped to six days from 79.
New York's DMV has previously experienced computer and system outages, causing delays and long lines in offices. Not long after the Green Light Law was passed in 2020, allowing immigrants illegally living in the country to apply for driver’s licenses, the DMV experienced large wait times due to a computer glitch.
Since then it has made strides as part of a broader initiative to “re-imagine the way it does business.” For example, it implemented online pre-screenings for transactions, such as applying for a REAL ID or Enhanced ID, as well as exchanging an out-of-state license.
In 2017, at a cost of about $22 million, the Rhode Island DMV updated its own 1970s technology — eventually moving the system into cloud computing from the COBAL programming language operating on a mainframe. (The state used a different contractor.) Rhode Island had continued to add new functions ever since the initial upgrade, such as cutting the number of times a motorist needs to reenter data repeatedly to just once from multiple times, the state’s motor vehicles administrator, Walter “Bud” Craddock, said in an interview.
The old technology made adding new features almost impossible without redoing the system top to bottom.
“The joke was, to find COBAL programmers you had to go look in nursing homes, because it’s such an antiquated programming language,” Craddock said.
FAST, the company hired to overhaul New York's DMV software, was in the news earlier this year after settling a lawsuit by a group of Michigan residents who were falsely accused nearly a decade ago of unemployment insurance fraud based on the company's software that operated without human supervision and had an error rate as high as 93%, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Dean declined to comment on the settlement but cited a company statement in the Free Press that the defense said it was clear their clients would prevail at trial, which is why the plaintiffs agreed to settle.
New software the state Department of Motor Vehicles is buying aims to shorten appointments, shift more services online and curb outages that have dogged the agency because of 1970s-era technology.
Those are some of the goals of a $277.6 million overhaul of DMV computers announced Wednesday by Gov. Kathy Hochul's office to modernize a bureaucracy that regulates 20 million vehicles and 14.2 million drivers and permit holders.
The project is expected to take about four years, according to DMV spokesman Walter McClure, although there’s no set start date.
First to be rolled out: updating the computer systems for licensing and photo ID issuance for drivers and non-drivers, as well as administration and enforcement of traffic violations. Next: vehicle registrations, title issuance and insurance verification services, said McClure, who provided details of the project’s goals.
Each of these phases is expected to take about two years.
“Computer and system outages that have caused delays and long lines in DMV offices will become a thing of the past with the introduction of modern applications and proven successful solutions,” Hochul's office said in a news release. Paper forms would be eliminated where possible, the release said.
Motor vehicle agencies first digitized in the 1970s, when large computer networks were first being established, according to Ian Grossman, president and chief executive of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. About 70% of the agencies in North America have upgraded from that era and the balance is in the process of upgrading, he said.
He said the public had grown accustomed to transacting its business online, without having to go into a physical office as in the past.
“The pandemic furthered the expectations of individuals to be able to receive and interact with services in an online and a touchless transaction,” said Grossman, a native of Middle Island who took his road test in central Suffolk in the early 1990s when the DMV still largely operated with paper forms.
New York's contract is with FAST Enterprises LLC of Centennial, Colorado, which has been hired by governments across the country to modernize systems for taxes, child support and motor vehicle bureaus.
Frank Dean, a client services representative for FAST, said that the company's contract with New York State prohibited him from speaking to the press about this specific project but pointed to an article in Move Magazine, about the same software FAST helped install in Montana.
The company has successfully installed the software — called FastDS-VS — in 20 states, according to Dean.
Once implemented, the software makes it easier for the public to conduct DMV business via computer, cellphone and texting if the jurisdiction chooses to turn on those features, he said.
The article about Montana said because of the system calls to that state's customer service line dropped by 30% and the average examiner was able to see two more people per day taking written or road tests.
Transaction times dropped to an average of eight minutes from 22, and the wait time in some offices for written or driving tests dropped to six days from 79.
New York's DMV has previously experienced computer and system outages, causing delays and long lines in offices. Not long after the Green Light Law was passed in 2020, allowing immigrants illegally living in the country to apply for driver’s licenses, the DMV experienced large wait times due to a computer glitch.
Since then it has made strides as part of a broader initiative to “re-imagine the way it does business.” For example, it implemented online pre-screenings for transactions, such as applying for a REAL ID or Enhanced ID, as well as exchanging an out-of-state license.
In 2017, at a cost of about $22 million, the Rhode Island DMV updated its own 1970s technology — eventually moving the system into cloud computing from the COBAL programming language operating on a mainframe. (The state used a different contractor.) Rhode Island had continued to add new functions ever since the initial upgrade, such as cutting the number of times a motorist needs to reenter data repeatedly to just once from multiple times, the state’s motor vehicles administrator, Walter “Bud” Craddock, said in an interview.
The old technology made adding new features almost impossible without redoing the system top to bottom.
“The joke was, to find COBAL programmers you had to go look in nursing homes, because it’s such an antiquated programming language,” Craddock said.
FAST, the company hired to overhaul New York's DMV software, was in the news earlier this year after settling a lawsuit by a group of Michigan residents who were falsely accused nearly a decade ago of unemployment insurance fraud based on the company's software that operated without human supervision and had an error rate as high as 93%, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Dean declined to comment on the settlement but cited a company statement in the Free Press that the defense said it was clear their clients would prevail at trial, which is why the plaintiffs agreed to settle.
