Dubai: The digitisation of drivers licensing services in Dubai will by the end of May add 15 services, officials said on Saturday.
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) expects the time for opening a learning driver file will drop from two days and four visits to just 15 minutes and without visiting the centre. Simplifying the procedures of 15 main and subsidiary services will result in a uniform journey for obtaining a driver licence.
Transactions covered by the improved services constitute 57 per cent of driver licensing services. The digitised services will be available on RTA smart channels, all the nine driving institutes, 19 main branches, and more than 120 service delivery counters.
Gathering of senior officials
The announcement came as Mattar Mohammed Al Tayer, Director-General, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the RTA, reiterated RTA’s commitment to uplift the calibre of drivers and vehicles services. His remarks came during a gathering with the directors of the RTA’s Licensing Agency in which he reviewed the progress in the digitisation of the licensing services, which covers 140 services: 54 for drivers licensing, 53 for vehicles licensing, 32 for commercial transport, and one for licensing activities monitoring.
Abdullah Yousef Al Ali, CEO of Licensing Agency, and directors at the agency briefed Al Tayer about the digitisation of drivers licensing services.
Al Tayer also stressed the importance of migrating to smart channels so all RTA’s transactions can be self-processed, and accordingly dispose of the need to visit service centres.
Smart drive
He said: “The digitisation of RTA’s transactions contributes to realising the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, and the directives of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, to transform Dubai into the smartest city in the world. Undoubtedly, it requires a raft of excellent services that surpass customers’ expectations to make them.”
Invest in Dubai link
Al Tayer also reviewed the latest developments of linking the commercial licensing with Invest in Dubai platform, which seeks to provide an environment conducive to investment in development projects in the Emirate. RTA’s systems have been connected with the platform, and workshops were held to brief about 11,500 companies practising 69 commercial activities in the fields of transport and car rental. Following this improvement, the time of obtaining a commercial license has plunged from 15 working days to 15 minutes only. The number of conditions list has dropped from four to one list. Equally, the number of required documents has fallen from 10 to one or two documents (depending on the transaction type), and the number of required visits has tumbled from five to none.
Paperless transformation
Al Tayer attended a presentation about initiatives to improve the technical testing of vehicles that included improving the Under-Process phase of the technical testing result, which improved the successful testing of vehicles from 86.2 per cent to 88.7 per cent.
E-certificates for testing
Initiatives also included paperless technical testing certificates, which replaced the printing of technical testing certificates for customers. Customers now get an electronic copy via text messages and emails. The initiative saved the printing of 1.094 million certificates since the introduction of the system in September 2020. The compliance with the paperless transactions of the service clocked 98.3 per cent.
Smart panel
The initiatives included the creation of a smart waiting panel at the technical inspection centres. The screens at customers waiting for lounges display updates about the status of testing customers’ vehicles and transmit vehicle’s data instantly without requiring them to wait at the testing bays. The system provides information about the time of the customer’s arrival at the centre, the expected time to start and complete the technical testing, service delivery time, and the number of vehicles in the testing bay
