Transport authority bids to cut licence renewals queues

The Malta Transport Authority (ADT) is exploring opportunities to provide motorists with alternative channels through which they can renew their road licences, in a bid to reduce the number of persons visiting the offices of the Licensing and Testing Directorate in Floriana.

One of these is the introduction of an on-line vehicle road licence system which would allow insurance agents to renew road licences. The system is expected to be deployed in the coming weeks, the ADT said.

Referring to recent media reports - The Times last Thursday reported about the long queues waiting in the sun outside the directorate's offices in Floriana - the ADT said statistics for the month of June showed a marked discrepancy between the number of persons calling personally to pay their licence at the directorate at the end of the month when compared with those calling at the beginning of the month.

Unfortunately, the delays experienced towards the end of the month of June were further exacerbated by the fact that the eve of the last day of the month was a public holiday.

While expressing its regrets for the inconvenience caused to customers, the ADT said it was also strengthening its Public Relations/Customer Care Desk at the directorate in order to handle queries in a more efficient manner.

In addition to this, plans were in hand to have more counter assistants to deal with the public at the end of each month.

The authority was also considering setting up a temporary structure in order to protect the public from the elements while queuing outside.

The ADT said the problem of queues was one that repeated itself, inevitably, towards the end of every month when vehicle road licences expired and as, more often than not, the result of the general trend of people leaving their road licence renewals until the end of the month.

This trend was obviously resulting in an under-utilisation of human and material resources at the directorate up to mid-month and an overwhelming demand at the end of the month. In order to cope with the influx of customers queuing up directorate staff were also asked to stay on beyond normal summer office hours.

The ADT has, on several occasions, advised the public to avoid leaving road licence renewals to the end of the month or make use of the facility to renew the licences by mail, in which case, renewals were dispatched back to the individual within three working days.

Alternatively the public could also avail itself of the service offered by insurance companies, which process the renewals on their clients' behalf.

The ADT said that as an incentive for the public to renew road licences early, persons visiting its offices for road licence renewals by the Friday before the 15th of every month would be eligible to participate in a quarterly lottery that would entitle them to a free, new personalised, eight-character registration plate of their choice.