System outage caused WYDOT’s Driver Services to be down statewide

People who needed to take care of driver license business on Wednesday were unable to because of an outage with the state’s computer system that processes licenses.

The Wyoming Department of Transportation experienced technical issues throughout the state with the Revenue Information System (RIS), a secured information system that supports critical operations for the department and other state agencies.

WYDOT’s Driver Services wasn’t able to issue driver licenses, complete driver license testing, issue identification cards and issue other needed documents because of the outage.  

“Any transaction we do is facilitated through RIS such as driver licenses, ID cards, driver knowledge testing, driving records and handicapped placards,” said Misty Zimmerman, deputy program manager with WYDOT’s Driver Services. “The outage on Wednesday was statewide and lasted about six hours.”

Besides Driver Services, RIS is used by WYDOT’s Motor Vehicle Services for plate, title and registration work and the Wyoming Highway Patrol to verify vehicle and driver information when a trooper makes a vehicle stop.

“RIS is such a vital tool for our state and its people,” said WYDOT Director Bill Panos. “This tool is critical lifeline used by authorized people to access people’s information in a secure way to verify, obtain or process information. Without RIS functioning properly, our citizens won’t be able to get their driver licenses, identification cards or other important documents.”

The state developed and implemented RIS in 1986 as a system that would securely store people’s information and be used by Driver Services and other state entities to verify information.  

“We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to the citizens of Wyoming who were trying to conduct business at our Driver Services locations throughout the state and to our state agency partners,” Panos said. “We are looking into the situation to see how we can make improvements so we can provide a better service to all of our customers.”

For additional information about this news release, contact Aimee Inama, senior Public Affairs specialist, at (307) 777-4013.