ROCHESTER, N.Y. — If you need to hit the DMV, there’s something you need to know. All Department of Motor Vehicles offices across New York state will close Friday afternoon for a system-wide upgrade, which will last into the middle of next week.
A trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles is about to become more user-friendly, according to state DMV officials. In order for that to happen, all DMV offices must close from Friday at 2 p.m. until next Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of changes happening very quickly,” said Monroe County Clerk Jamie Romeo.
Monroe County is one of the 51 New York counties to operate its own DMV’s oh behalf of the state. Romeo says each one is run a bit differently. The technology, system-wide, is outdated.
“New York State DMV, unfortunately, is one of those agencies where the technology really was due for a change,” she said.
NYS DMV is rolling out a new, modernized system that will replace hundreds of software applications, some of which date back a half-century. Over the Presidents’ Day weekend, about 30 million DMV records will be migrated to the new system, which is designed to make the trip to the DMV more efficient. During the changeover, all DMV services will be unavailable. Offices across the state will be closed. Online services will be down, and phone service will be unavailable.
“The goal is that the outages, the glitches, the issues that we would see that would come from the Albany-based systems, hopefully are supposed to be mitigated,” said Romeo.
If the transition goes according to plan, all DMVs are scheduled to reopen on Wednesday morning. The rollout is the first phase of a multi-year plan to replace aging Department of Motor Vehicles technology. A second major upgrade is scheduled for 2028. Officials say to contact your local DMV offices scheduled to reopen on Wednesday for any updates.
“The investments of New York State are really all looking at reducing your wait times,” she said. “Having a better experience, and also with all of the information that’s going into these systems, just making sure it’s more advanced, it’s more secure, and it’s going to be a much better product.”
“With one consolidated, state-of-the-art system, we will be replacing hundreds of software applications, some of which date back to the days of Nelson Rockefeller,” said DMV Commissioner and Chair of the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee Mark J.F. Schroeder, in a news release issued in January. “I truly believe it will give our staff the ability to serve New Yorkers better, faster, and more comprehensively than ever before.”
Some DMV offices have already made other upgrades. In Monroe County, a new queue-less system is intended to improve wait times and reduce appointment backlogs. DMV workers spent weeks training on the new system.
As with anything new, Romeo says it will be an adjustment. But one state officials say will be worth it to New Yorkers in the long run.
“It’s definitely one where we’re still trying to let folks know that we might still need a little patience when they get to the DMV for those first few days,” she said.