News

Nevada DMR offers self-serve license registration

February 1, 2004

LAS VEGAS -- One local branch of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is eliminating frustratingly long lines of customers waiting to renew their registrations.

Instead of taking a number and waiting in line, customers are in and out of the office in under five minutes, thanks to an electronic kiosk that processes registration renewals.

According to an article in the Las Vegas Sun, the Carey Avenue office in Las Vegas is the only DMV office in the state that has the kiosk option. It was installed in September as a pilot program. And it has been such a success that more of the kiosks will soon be set up in other DMV offices, officials said late last week.

The DMV has contracted with JCM America Inc. of Henderson to install 14 more kiosks around the state later this year. There will be two each in the Clark County offices.

There were 3,028 transactions performed by the kiosk during the first three months. JCM, the operator of the kiosk, received $22,000 in revenue, according to the article.

The machine is about 6-feet high and 4-feet wide and has a touchscreen that allows people to follow a few prompts to complete their registration renewal.

An electronic scanner reads the bar code on the person's registration, and the machine will take cash, credit or debit cards for payment. It then prints a receipt and drops out a new registration tag.

Nevadans -- especially those in the rapidly growing Las Vegas Valley -- consistently complain about how long it takes to get things done at the DMV offices. Waits can last for more a few hours, the article said.

Ginny Lewis, director of the DMV, said the said the average transaction time at the kiosk is 86 seconds And kiosks don't need lunch or bathroom breaks so each one can can handle 160 transactions in an eight-hour day.