Transportation News, Volume 13, Number 9, May 1988 Page: 6 of 16
16 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Registration system due for big change
By Gina McAskill
The 20-year-old automated system Texas
uses to administer vehicle titles and
registrations barely keeps up with the
13 million vehicles registered in the state.
But a department team of 29 has been
working full speed ahead for over a year on
a new Registration and Title System to be
installed in 1991.
The team, led by project administrator
Bob Braden, has just finished identifying
user requirements, the second step in a
13-task development plan.
“We've really tried to do our homework
over this last year, establishing what the
actual requirements of this system are,” said
Braden. “Not doing the homework is often a
cause for project failure in this type of
situation. That’s why we’ve been taking the
necessary time in these early phases.”
The goal is to provide a uniformly
automated system to the 254 county tax
assessor-collector offices, which are the
“point of sale” for vehicle documents. The
current system is burdened with excessive
manual processing of paper forms,
duplication of effort at various levels in the
system, delays in updating the master file
after a transaction, and other snags in
information flow.
Back in 1986, the highway commission
approved a five-year plan to improve the
process, based on recommendations from a
consultant study. The department estimates
that developing and implementing the new
system could cost $33.7 million, which
includes purchasing arid installing tKe
necessary hardware in the counties and
training county workers. The initial cost of
the new system should be returned to the
department in benefits within five years after
implementation.
The team created to undertake this
enormous task includes personnel from the
Division of Motor Vehicles and the
Automation Division, plus several new
employees hired for their expertise. The
team is headed by Braden, technical manager
Eleanor Smith, and operations manager
Lawrance Smith, and reports directly to A1
Castello, deputy director for support
operations.
The primary purpose of the Registration
and Title System, say project team members,
is to improve service to the public by
avoiding delay, repetition, and confusion.
Second, RTS will comply with all laws,
especially the statute that says new and
replacement titles must be issued by mail
within five days of application. The current
system is, in general, physically incapable of
producing titles in five days.
A third goal is to provide current and
reliable information to law enforcement. As
it stands, it takes six to eight weeks for the
master file on registration and titles to be
updated. The file doesn’t accurately reflect
reality for officers running checks on
vehicles. The goal is to have the master file
updated within 24 hours after a transaction
has been processed at a county — and that
delay is planned only to allow for correcting
errors at the point of sale.
Finally, the system will provide cash
accounting and inventory control sufficient to
deal with the ever-increasing number of
Texas vehicles.
The new system will have “something in it
for just about everybody,” said Braden.
“There are benefits for all the
players — public, state, county, and other
agencies in the chain.”
The RTS team has solicited
recommendations from those who will be
using the system — the tax assessor-
collectors, state comptroller. Department of
Public Safety, and Division of Motor BBRI
Vehicles regional offices. Some of the other
groups involved in putting the package
together include Automation, Finance, and
Transportation Planning divisions,
associations such as automobile dealers, and
finance companies.
A demonstration RTS package, using
.personal computers, will be displayed at the
Tax Assessor-Collector Association annual
conference in mid-May. Though not a
prototype system, the microcomputers will
show some of the results of project efforts,
and the team hopes to elicit helpful
comments from the conferees.
According to Braden, the most-heard
comment from local governments about the
RTS system has been, “When can we have
it?” Over the past year, numerous counties
have clamored to become pilot sites when a
prototype is tested.
The team has not limited its homework to
Texas. Members have visited New Jersey,
California, Colorado, and New Mexico so
far, observing the states’ motor vehicle
systems. Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin,
Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia are among
other states on the “to visit” list.
Over the next couple of months, the RTS
team will issue a “Request for Information”
to vendors. The document will contain the
requirements, objectives, and scope of the
project. The team hopes to receive a wide
variety of information about products and
services they may ultimately use in the new
system.
All the information gathered will be
combined to produce several alternative
systems. The RTS project team plans to
submit these alternatives to an executive
committee of top department administrators
by the end of the year.
When one approach is approved, the
project will move into its second
phase — system design. After the testing of
the finished system, the implementation
phase will begin, with a view toward full
acceptance of the new system by the end of
1991.
“We knew a change was overdue,” said
ffraden/“There’s an obvious need for an
improved system.” When the brand-new
Registration and Title System swings into
action, it will mean better service to the
public, a lot less paper shuffling, and fewer
headaches for all.^
Name that section
By Becky Beck
How does a section find a new name when
its old one no longer fits? If it’s the
Electronic Data Processing Section of the
Division of Motor Vehicles, it holds a contest.
The section needed a moniker to more
accurately describe the work it handles.
Besides issuing titles on newly purchased
vehicles, the section issues certified copies of
original titles that are lost, provides salvage
titles to vehicles “totaled” by insurance com-
panies, and examines title transfers that
involve operation-of-law and gray-market
vehicles.
Each of the four work groups in the section
submitted a name idea, and the DMV board,
with the consensus of division director Dian
Neill, chose the winning entry: Title Control
Systems (TCS).
The winners, members of the input group,
were treated to lunch. They include: Dorothy
Doran (group head), Cathy Adams, Pam
Arnold, Arleen Christensen, Ninfa Diaz,
Ramona Inmon, Roxanne Loper, Lynda
Lutz, Margie Marone, Margie Montgomery,
Rosie Patton, Mimi Wheeler, Carolyn
Williams, and Julia Williams.
And since the change, TCS also has a new
nickname: Top Cat Section. ★
M
Engineer-Director Raymond Stotzer previewed the department’s planned RTS system for members of the
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, meeting in San Antonio last February. Division of
Motor Vehicles Director Dian Neill, left, hosted the conference (Photo by Jack Lewis)
TRANSPORTATION NEWS
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Texas. Department of Transportation. Transportation News, Volume 13, Number 9, May 1988, periodical, May 1988; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1031969/m1/6/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.