Dubbed The Express Lane, the online renewal program is an extension of the county's JeffCo InTouch Web site and kiosk network. It allows users to renew up to 10 vehicle registra-tions at a time with a single credit-card transaction. A fee of $2 is added to each registration renewal, the same amount charged for mail-in transactions.
Alabama counties are tasked with collecting registration fees based on vehicle valuations set by the state. Counties then take a commission to offset administrative costs. With more than 650,000 motorists registered in the county, and more moving in each month, the traditional processing of tag renewals was placing a heavy burden on county staff.
"In today's government budget world, we can't run to the county commission and ask for funding for new staff positions all the time," said Randy Godeke, director of the Jefferson County Revenue Department. "We needed to automate the renewal process somewhat, and the next logical step was to open it up to the Internet, which we feel is the future."
Two-Way Street
One of Alabama's largest, Jefferson County encompasses the capital city of Birmingham and its suburbs. It is also home to several rural pockets geographically distant from county service counters, leaving a segment of the local population without convenient access to information. To address this service gap, the county, two years ago, began building a network of electronic kiosks strategically located in supermarkets and shopping centers in those rural areas.
The kiosks became popular, welcome news to county officials unable to foot the bill to construct satellite county offices to serve these areas. Making the kiosks transactional and adding a Web component made data exchange a two-way street.
"We'd had success with the informational kiosks, but to serve those residents who didn't have access to the Internet, we needed to make them transactional," Godeke said. "The software developed for the kiosks to accomplish that turned out to be nearly identical to that needed to put the renewal process on the Web."
The ability of the software to cross easily between the kiosk and Web environments allowed The Express Lane to become fully operational in January after just six months of development and testing by Openshaw Media Group, a Birmingham-based developer of public access solutions. The response from motorists has been positive, Godeke said, but like most Web-based transactions, it has taken time for users to overcome doubts about credit-card security and fully embrace the concept.
"We're seeing some growth patterns on the Web and the kiosks, but it's going to take some time, perhaps a whole payment cycle, for people to convert to the new process," Godeke said. "As they come in at the end of the month to renew and wait in line for 45 minutes, we'll be able to talk to them and give them literature, and hopefully next year they will realize that this service is available from their home computer."
Staying In Touch County officials estimate that
nearly 20,000 users hit the JeffCo InTouch site each month, with about 1,000 of those logging on to renew motor-vehicle registrations. Encouraged by those numbers, heads of other departments within the county are putting their own transactional Web components into high gear.
By October, Jefferson County residents will be able to renew boat registrations and pay property taxes and monthly sewer service bills from the kiosks or their home computers. Currently, payments at kiosks can be made by credit card only, but transactions will ultimately allow the use of debit cards, a la ATM machines.
In a move to increase public access to the conveniences of electronic transactions, the county plans to implement a dial-up service allowing callers, using touch-tone telephones, to complete the same transactions available at kiosks and on the Web site. Additional kiosks have been included in the 1999-2000 fiscal budget.
"The goal is to set up the system so that no matter how technology-challenged people may be, they will still be able to do these transactions without a great deal of inconvenience," said Jenny Openshaw, vice president of business development for Openshaw Media Group.
Secure Perimeter
With security a major concern of users participating in online transactions, county officials enhanced the traditional practices for secure electronic payments by requiring at least two unique identifiers in all transactions. Motorists renewing vehicle registrations online must enter their vehicle's license plate number and a unique record number printed on the registration renewal notice.
Future property-tax transactions will require users to enter a parcel number and a similar transaction-specific identifier. Successful entry of both will allow users to retrieve records from the county's mainframe showing property-tax assessments and the amount of tax owed for the year.
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Tom Byerly is a writer based in Elk Grove, Calif. email
