Tennessee DMV to deploy self-service kiosks


By November, Tennessee residents needing to renew or replace their driver's licenses could be going to their local library, police precinct or county clerk's office and using a self-service kiosk instead of one of the driver service centers.

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New automated kiosks and iPads help Phillis Bolton and other customers avoid long lines at driver centers.

PHOTO BY BRANDON DILL // BUY THIS PHOTO

New automated kiosks and iPads help Phillis Bolton and other customers avoid long lines at driver centers.

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By November, Tennessee residents needing to renew or replace their driver's licenses could be going to their local library, police precinct or county clerk's office and using a self-service kiosk instead of one of the driver service centers.

State officials are even in talks with a national retail outlet chain where some kiosks may be located. The negotiations are still in the works and state officials declined to name the retailer until the deal is finalized.

"We want to give customers more options and easy access as opposed to them coming to the driver service centers," said Michael Hogan, director of the state's Driver License Issuance office. "It just makes good business sense."

The goal is to keep such routine business as renewals, duplicates or replacement licenses away from the state's driver centers as much as possible.

Out of the 4.6 million Tennesseans with driver's licenses, Hogan said 745,000 each year are renewals. Officials hope to have 80 percent of the renewals done using the kiosks.

Tipped off by a security guard, Emmanuel Williams used a self-service kiosk Friday afternoon at the center at 3200 E. Shelby Drive. He avoided a long line of about 20 to 25 people waiting for assistance. He needed a duplicate driver's license after misplacing his wallet.

Within about three minutes, Williams, 28, of Memphis had a receipt with his driver's license photo and information on it that will serve as a temporary driver's license until his permanent one arrives in the mail within five days.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give it a 9," he said. "It's better than standing in line."

Officials will be installing 40 self-service stand-alone kiosks in urban areas which often have long lines of people waiting to conduct business. In addition to the kiosks, driver centers also have 72 iPads that are mostly self-service.

With the iPad, residents can do almost all the work necessary but must know their driver's license numbers. Both self-service kiosks and the iPads, will require a resident to have either a credit or debit card. There will be no additional service charge for using plastic. With the iPad, which will remain in the driver centers, people must wait until an examiner takes their photos.

Each of the 40 kiosks costs about $45,000. It is a part of phase one of a $4 million project designed to make getting a driver's license less painful. The state driver center's workforce will remain the same size with no expected cutbacks.

"The examiners we do have will focus on the more complicated or more difficult transactions," Hogan said. "It is similar to the banking concept. Any bank is going to push you toward the kiosk to do those express transactions -- deposits, withdrawals, transfers. The more complicated transactions, you would go to a bank teller or loan officer."

The kiosks are identical to ones the state of Mississippi has been using for the past two years. The Magnolia state was the first to use the kiosk technology from L-1 Solutions, which is now called Morphotrust.

Each kiosk has high-tech facial recognition that even identical twins apparently can't fool. "It ensures that the person we have on file is the one standing in front of the camera," Hogan said.

By next summer, Hogan said Tennessee will roll out phase two of the $4 million project, called EZ Visit, in which residents can do most of the work online and even have set appointments at a driver center with a dedicated staff to handle those appointments.

"This is one of ways we can control the crowds," he said. "This has been three years in the making."

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This page contains a single entry by Staff published on September 11, 2012 6:29 AM.

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