The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is upgrading its driver’s license system, including software, which will put more services online and is expected to reduce customer wait times.
The agency has a two-year, $29.9 million contract with Colorado-based FAST Enterprises for the upgrade.
The current ALEA driver’s license system was installed in 2005 and has not been upgraded, ALEA told Alabama Daily News in written statement. It is dependent on programming and mainframe systems from the 1960s and 1970s, and this technology has placed limitations on the agency and customers.
According to ALEA, faster processes such as customer online pre-enrollment, along with other online services, will lessen the reasons customers must visit an office and speed up a visit.
“I appreciate y’all moving on this, it’s overdue,” Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, told ALEA representatives at a legislative Contract Review Committee meeting last week.
The agency hopes the new software will be in place prior to the two-year mark on the contract.