Friday, January 25, 2019

Harold Nedd: (808) 225-0716



City offers expanded appointment system



Honolulu – The city's Department of Customer Services is urging residents to take full advantage of the six-month window that’s available to make an appointment for driver license or state ID renewal.



The advice is meant to help ensure that residents benefit from the convenience of the city’s gradually expanding appointment system, which now offers nearly twice as many bookings per day since its rollout in April 2018.



“We encourage residents not to wait until the last minute and to start thinking about their driver license renewal,” said Customer Services Director Sheri Kajiwara. “This is a task the majority of people need to do once every eight years and just as you pre-plan an annual physical with your doctor by scheduling an appointment at least four-to-eight weeks in advance, residents can also optimize their driver license renewal experience.”



The appointment system was introduced nine months ago to decrease residents’ wait time, while also meeting increased public demand for the service. Driver license renewals on O‘ahu last year rose to 121,893 from 78,734 the previous year, an increase of nearly 55 percent.



The city began the program by offering 194 appointment slots per day to renew a driver license or state ID, leaving the remaining slots available to meet standard walk-in demand. As awareness and demand grew for appointments, the city shifted and is now offering 351 slots per day. This represents an increase of 80 percent compared to nine months ago.



“My end goal is to make appointments the standard process for renewals, with limited walk-in service to accommodate emergencies or special conditions,” added Kajiwara. “With an appointment, residents can be in and out of our service centers in about 20 minutes, significantly shortening the wait time and better serving our customers.”



Currently, resident can make an appointment up to three months in advance at nine different locations across O‘ahu. Appointments can be booked at license.honolulu.gov. To deter misuse, the system now allows only one active appointment per phone number.



Appointment times vary by location. Kapālama Hale, as the main licensing center, handles 230 appointments per day compared to the 50 appointments that satellite city halls can accommodate daily. The five driver licensing centers focus mainly on licensing, while the nine satellite city halls manage a wide variety of city services.



When booking an appointment online a confirmation code is provided so that an unneeded appointment can be cancelled, which helps the next person who needs one.





Residents are encouraged to log onto license.honolulu.gov and use the document guide to ensure they have all of the federally required documents on-hand during their visit to renew a driver license or state ID.





—PAU—