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P.R.’s Dept. of Transportation to offer driver services via new app

The CESCO’s new digital app.

The Puerto Rico Department of Transportation has launched the CESCO Digital Mobile application to enable users to conduct transactions that until Monday could only be done in person at Driver Services Centers (CESCO,) the Treasury Department or via complicated websites.

The tool was developed by students from the University of Puerto Rico in Bayamón, Gov. Ricardo Rosselló confirmed upon unveiling the new mobile technology.

“This new CESCO Digital tool represents an example of the path that our administration is following to achieve a more agile and efficient, less bureaucratic government, and to help our people access to more and better services,” the governor said.

“Now drivers and motor vehicle owners can carry out transactions quickly and safely. This will also help those who want to go directly to CESCO or Treasury find shorter lines and receive faster service,” he said.

“We recognize and thank the students of the UPR Bayamón who developed this extraordinary tool and proved once again the enormous ability of our youth,” the governor said.

With this new application, the so-called triple line is eliminated. Before renewing a license or buying a tag, drivers had to line up to get a certification traffic infractions, then go to a Treasury Department collections center to pay them, and stand in another to erase them from the system.

Through Digital CESCO, the user can conduct all of those transactions via their smartphone or tablet, including paying by credit card. Users may access information about their driver’s license and its validity as well as information of vehicles registered in their name. Similarly, users may download certificates of negative fines on their licenses or registered vehicles.

Users may also download the vehicle’s registration to process the purchase of the annual tag directly in the application, as well as paying fines to the user’s license or motor vehicle.

This new technology was in a testing and adjustments phase over the past weeks.

By August, developers expect to integrate the option of paying via ATH Móvil, and have the application ready for Android operating systems. The app is available for download on iOS devices through the Apple Store. CESCOs will have several iPads available on-site, also by August, for people who don’t have access to the application through their smartphones or tablets.

Historically, getting anything done at Puerto Rico CESCOs has been a day-long affair. The application is expected to eliminate that problem, government officials said.

“It is unacceptable that citizens lose a day of work or school to go to a CESCO, and not receive the services because the system crashed. With CESCO Digital that will no longer be the norm,” Transportation Secretary Carlos Contreras-Aponte said.

He noted that for the application to work with the stability and security that users require, DTOP is moving CESCO’s data systems operation, known as DAVID, to a “more flexible and robust platform. This platform is at the Justice Department and, according to stability and reliability tests conducted so far, this will dramatically minimize DAVID system crashes that cause so many disruptions and setbacks.”

Until the DAVID system is fully migrated to the new platform, there will be the same service interruptions that for years have plagued the system.

Meanwhile, the government’s Chief of Information Technology, Luis Arocho, said work is underway so that the second phase of the CESCO Digital application integrate a notification feature that will allow users to receive alerts about the expiration of vehicle tags and licenses, fines, amnesty payment periods, and issues related to organ donation, among others.

For the third phase, expected to be completed before the end of 2018, CESCO Digital will allow the renewal of a person’s driver’s license without having to physically go to one of the island’s CESCOs.

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This story was written by our staff based on a press release.
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