AUSTIN – The Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Driver License (DL) Offices will reopen for regular business hours statewide on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, following the closure caused by the driver license system upgrade. Online services will also be available.
Over the Labor Day weekend, the Driver License Division began upgrading the DL system as part of its State-to-State (S2S) implementation plan. All offices closed on Friday, Sept. 1, and were scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, Sept. 5. However, despite prior testing, a capacity issue caused by the upgrade overloaded the system and services became unavailable.
DPS personnel have worked around-the-clock to identify a variety of issues with the software and the amount of traffic brought on by this upgrade. Working with experts outside the department, DPS personnel addressed these issues in order to stabilize the system and slowly increase DL transactions each day. DL employees remained stationed at offices statewide to accommodate walk-in customers whenever possible throughout the week, and on Friday morning, select Mega Centers reopened in North Texas.
We understand the frustration the extended upgrade has caused to those customers who had their appointments cancelled this week, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Our customer service team is contacting impacted Texans via preferred email or phone to give them priority rebooking as quickly as possible.
DL offices will be extending hours in high-volume areas in order to accommodate rebooked appointments in the short-term. During this time, walk-in service will be very limited or unavailable at most locations as we work to serve those people who were impacted this week.
Anyone who had an appointment that was cancelled Sept. 5-8 and has not yet been rebooked is asked to email CUSTOMERSERVICEDL@dps.texas.gov and include your name and preferred DL office for assistance.
The scheduled upgrade that took place implemented the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) State-to-State (S2S) Verification Service. S2S is a way for a state to electronically check with all other participating states to determine if an applicant currently holds a driver license or identification card there, and then take appropriate action. This upgrade is required in order for Texas to be REAL ID compliant.
Customers will not see any changes to the way they complete transactions as the changes occur on the backend for employees when they are processing applications. The upgrade also speeds up the sharing of driver history records, so information is being shared between states, giving requestors a more complete picture of a driver’s history and improving safety.
We would like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding, and we again apologize for the inconvenience.
