Several weeks of computer system outages have delayed services at Office of Motor Vehicle sites across Louisiana, frustrating both customers and the agency.
“The current issues that we’re facing this week started about three weeks ago,” said OMV Commissioner Dan Casey. “It was on and off, and it seems to be getting worse each day.”
The problem has lengthened wait times for customers seeking to renew their driver’s licenses, register their vehicles, reinstate their insurance or receive other OMV services.
It also is impacting public tag agents, which are allowed to perform OMV services on the state’s behalf.
According to Adele Dauphin, president of the Louisiana Public Tag Agent Association, one member tracked the computer system disruptions and found there were 38 hours of downtime between Feb. 21 and March 11.
On Wednesday alone, the system froze at least five times, Casey said: one time, it was out from 9:27 a.m. until 9:56 a.m. The issue then resolved, but only for about half an hour, when the program froze again.
The Office of Technology Services does not yet know how to fix the problem but has “all hands on deck” working to do so, said Casey.
The state believes the root of the problem has to do with traffic in the OMV’s database, which law enforcement and other states use to access drivers’ records.
“What’s happening is that more than one entity may be trying to access the same record or the same group of records,” said Casey, adding that that may “lock up” the system.
Even customers whose names are called at OMV offices are not immune from the effects, as the system can freeze while that employee is working on the customer’s request. Such interruptions can freeze a driver’s records, requiring the employee to call a help desk to resolve the issue, Casey said.
The outages also could become a public safety issue, according to Casey, who said police rely on the OMV’s database to pull information about drivers on the roads.
In a statement, Louisiana State Police Sergeant William Huggins said the agency has not received any reports of troopers having issues related to the system outages but "(recognizes) the importance of ensuring uninterrupted access to critical driver information for public safety."
"We are actively monitoring our systems and will make any necessary adjustments to ensure our operations remain unaffected," the statement said. "Should any issues arise, we will work closely with OMV and other agencies to mitigate any potential impact on law enforcement operations."
Casey said the state will attempt to implement possible solutions over the next few Sundays but must try one fix at a time to properly identify the problem.
“We have to just go through one thing after another diligently in an attempt to get it back up and running,” he said.
A bigger fix could be coming
According to Casey, the database’s software is 50 years old and needs to be updated. Such an upgrade could help prevent future system outages.
Legislators and Gov. Jeff Landry have been very supportive of an upgrade, Casey said, and the OMV has narrowed its options for a new program down to two possibilities.
He expects to select one within 30 days. Then, it will take 18 months to modernize and implement the software for the driver’s licenses side of the database, and another 12 to 18 months for vehicle registration, according to Casey.
The first upgrade should help relieve the strain on the database and improve operations, he said.
In the meantime, the OMV is getting a new mainframe, which Casey said should also help. The commissioner expressed confidence that the Office of Technology Services will stop the ongoing software freezes and apologized to customers experiencing delays.
“It’s a tough, tough thing,” he said.
The delays come at a difficult time for the department, which Casey said gets the most traffic during tax season, when citizens have extra money on hand to pay for services.
In addition, the Transportation Security Administration has said it will begin enforcing its “REAL ID” requirements on May 7. That means airplane passengers must have identification compliant with stricter regulations to board, though the TSA has said it will take a phased-in enforcement approach. It is unclear precisely what that approach will entail.
Regardless, the change has left some citizens scrambling to obtain or update driver’s licenses by May 7.
