The
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) expects to save £50m
over the next eight years, as it begins to reap the benefits of
technology to enable customers to pay their
car tax online.
The Electronic Vehicle Licensing system has allowed the
DVLA to reduce the cost of each transaction by 30% since its
roll out in 2004 at a cost of £36.5m.
Thirty per cent of all customers use the online service, and the
DVLA plans to increase this to 65% by the end of the 2008 financial
year. Twenty five per cent use the telephone service, the DVLA
said.
The system works by checking MOT and insurance details
electronically, with the Vehicle Operator Services Agency holding
the MOT database and the Motor Insurance Bureau holding
insurance.
The insurance database, which has relationships with every
insurance company in the UK, is run by credit checking service
Experian and is checked via a live link.
There are further live links to the
Veteran's Agency and the
Department for Work and Pensions to check for exemptions.
Andrew Rhodes, head of electronic customer services at the DVLA,
said usability was key to the site's success. "Information
gathering services often do it the way the organisation wants to do
it, rather than what the customer needs or prefers. We have
minimised the amount of effort customers need to put in," he
said.
He added that there were plans to roll out more services on the
site. "We made all the necessary investment upfront and completely
restructured the architecture, so we can upgrade as we go along,"
he said. There are also plans to link to the passport service.
The Electronic Vehicle Licensing system is written in
Java J2EE and runs on eight AIX servers. Six Windows servers
run a Siebel customer relationship management system which links
the licensing system to call centre agents.
DVLA >>
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