Motor Vehicle Division experimenting with expanded office hours in Tucson

TUCSON – At most urban Arizona Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division offices, customers begin lining up around 7:30 a.m. in anticipation of an 8 o’clock opening, aiming to avoid a wait. Those who don’t often try to squeeze in MVD visits during lunch breaks, creating a rush that can lead to longer waits throughout the afternoon.

As part of its efforts to improve the customer experience and reduce wait times throughout the state, MVD has started opening its three offices serving the Tucson area at 7:30 a.m. to give more people the opportunity to visit before work and to even out the flow of customers throughout the day.

“We want to provide more opportunities for customers to get their business done quickly with MVD,” ADOT Motor Vehicle Division Director Eric Jorgensen said. “We are committed to improving wait times and making the overall customer experience better.”

MVD will be monitoring the effectiveness of this experiment throughout the summer.

Reducing wait times at MVD offices is a key part of ADOT’s agency-wide commitment to continuous improvement. Other MVD experiments toward this goal include moving customers through the west Phoenix location without calling out numbers.

MVD’s efforts have already yielded process improvements that include printing temporary credentials at customer service windows instead of sending customers to a separate line. Also, customers who need to retake the driving test now go directly to the testing area instead of first waiting in line to re-verify their applications with a representative.

To accommodate opening earlier, employees at the Tucson MVD offices are working alternative schedules. The evaluation includes testing different schedules in order to have offices open longer.

With the new Tucson hours in place for only a couple of weeks, MVD has already noted improvement in wait times at the Tucson Regional office on South Broadmont Drive. In the course of planning, doing and checking results to continuously improve, MVD is prepared to make further adjustments to hours.

“Our approach of experimenting and assessing MVD’s processes has yielded and will continue to yield improvements that benefit customers around Arizona,” Jorgensen said.

For more information, visit azdot.gov/mvd.