Cracking the Code on CT DMV Wait Lines

The CT Department of Motor Vehicles has heard the complaints for years about long lines at its branches.

Last year, after the agency introduced a new software network as part of its “modernization”, wait times skyrocketed even higher! Hearing someone waited three hours or more to get something done was not out of the norm.

The DMV took a number of steps to stop the ever increasing wait times. It severed ties with 3M, which designed the software, yet kept trying to find all the bugs in it.

At the same time, it brought on a deputy commissioner to see what she could do to solve workflow issues at branches.

More than six months later, after what the agency calls a “deep dive”, Deputy Commissioner Judeen Wrinn, along with Commissioner Michael Byzdra, and Governor Dannel Malloy, outlined the changes they have made based upon the findings in the research. The changes, tested this fall at the DMV branches in Enfield and Wethersfield branches, yielded dramatically lower wait times. From an average of an hour and 17 minutes before the changes, to 35 minutes average waits afterward.

The changes Wrinn and her team came up with include, opening 15 minutes earlier so customers can get their paperwork in order, giving customers service tickets almost as soon as they walk in a branch, so their wait time is more accurately tracked, and having one, or several “customer advocates” being the first point of contact so they are ready with all the right paperwork when they reach a service counter.

Wrinn said, “The front line employees were pulled together to look at the current process, we culled the data, we observed over 500 individual customer interactions, from the time they walked in the door, all the way to the time they were served.”

The CT DMV rolled out these new processes to every branch on December 10th. We visited the New Britain branch where some people said their waits were short, while others still went an hour and a half or longer. The state believes these numbers will all drop in the weeks ahead as the new branches that just made the changes get comfortable with the adjustments.

Contact Us