When New York City announced in November that it would start issuing tickets instead of making arrests for possession of small quantities of marijuana, the state’s judges were alarmed. Already overburdened and mired in time-consuming bureaucracy, summons courts faced the prospect of having to process tens of thousands of additional tickets each year.

That change spurred plans, unveiled on Tuesday, to transform the city’s summons process in the hopes of making it more efficient for judges, lawyers and the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers charged with low-level violations each year.

The changes are part of a broad reform package announced by the state’s chief Judge, Jonathan Lippman, and Mayor Bill de Blasio that is primarily focused on clearing backlogs at state courts that keep hundreds locked up at Rikers Island for years without being convicted of a crime.

While they have not generated as much attention as Rikers Island, the changes in the summons process could have significant consequences for a far broader swath of the city. Last year, more than 350,000 summonses were issued for violations like drinking alcohol in public or riding a bicycle on a sidewalk, more than half of the total number of Criminal Court cases.