Milwaukee, Madison customers wait longest for DMV service, but delays growing elsewhere

Keegan Kyle | Appleton Post-Crescent

MADISON - How long do Division of Motor Vehicles customers typically wait in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Wausau? And how much longer are DMV visitors waiting for service than in past years?

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin found that statewide, customers are waiting longer than they did five years ago. So we requested data for each DMV service center to find out who's waiting longest in Wisconsin, which sites have improved the most and which have gotten worse.

The graphic (see below) compares wait times at 30 service centers in October each year since 2013 — using the most recent full month for analysis.

Our three top takeaways from this snapshot:

► The six Milwaukee and two Madison service centers had the state's worst wait times last month, but the DMV service center in downtown Milwaukee is better than most. The average downtown customer waited about 8 minutes, or about half as long as visitors at the DMV's facility in southwest Milwaukee.

► Fox Valley customers saw a huge drop in wait times from 2013 to 2014, but the numbers have been climbing back up. Green Bay, Appleton and Oshkosh had the state's worst wait times in October 2013. Now the numbers are more average, around 11 to 12 minutes at each location.

► Wait times have increased at most service centers since 2013. In Stevens Point last month, the average customer waited about 10 minutes before getting to the counter — twice as long as a visitor in Stevens Point five years ago.

State transportation officials have attributed increasing wait times to an uptick in customer volumes and some DMV staff moving to a project aimed at processing new vehicle titles faster.

RELATED: If it seems like you're waiting longer at the Wisconsin DMV, it's not your imagination

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Kristina Boardman, the state's top DMV official, said this week that DMV staff were doing a "great job in serving customers efficiently and effectively" while dealing with a staff reduction of more than 5 percent since 2011.

"The staff reduction and increased service hours and options means that there are not sufficient positions to staff for peak times," she said.

Boardman urged customers to help reduce wait times by completing more services through the state's website or private vendors. Customers can also use the state's website to check wait times before visiting some facilities.

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Keegan Kyle is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. He can be reached at kkyle@gannett.com or 619-206-5293.