RTA kiosks at malls for car registration, licensing

DUBAI — Adding more channels to the convenience of motorists, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is planning to set up electronic kiosks in shopping malls for the renewal of vehicle registration from early 2012, a senior official told Khaleej Times.

The touchscreen-enabled kiosks would be conveniently placed at popular public places, including malls, commercial centres and other busy places, helping people to avoid long queues at customer care centres.

“We are currently running in-house trial runs of the kiosks and the results have been good so far. Hopefully, we will be able to launch the service by January 2012,” said Ahmed Hashem Bahrozyan, CEO of the RTA’s Licensing Agency.

The kiosks would help motorists renew their licences, pay fines and apply for various certificates, apart from the renewal of vehicle registration.

“It will perform all high-demand jobs, which are currently available at the customer care centres, online as well as through call centres. This will be an additional channel for those who don’t have access to the Internet; they can just go to the nearest mall and avail the service,” he explained.

The kiosks would benefit all those who are not comfortable with using credit cards online for payment of registration fees or fines because it would accept both cards as well as cash to process the services.

“Our online services are growing in popularity everyday, but we still find that the majority of the people prefer getting their jobs done at the customer care centres due to various reasons and that is why we have seen that only 3 to 4 per cent of the motorists renew their licences or vehicle registration online,” said Bahrozyan, adding that the RTA intends to divert some of these users to kiosks, which will ease the burden off the usually busy customer care centres.

Owners of new vehicles and those below three years can avail the services at the kiosks.

Those with cars that are older than three years would have to get their vehicles tested by a certified agent as customary, and then proceed to renew their registration.

Though most of the kiosks would issue an interim certificate, which would acknowledge the renewal of registration as well as licences, some kiosks located in the RTA customer service centres would immediately vend the registration and licence cards.

shafaat@khaleejtimes.com