Hawaii Launches Online Vehicle Monitoring System
Hawaii has launched a first-of-its-kind new online service that aims to help rental car companies cope with a recurring problem.
It’s a common story. A visitor rents a vehicle for the family vacation in Hawaii. At some point during the vacation, the vehicle gets a parking ticket, which is subsequently lost before the car is returned to the rental office. Whether it is an innocent mistake or intentional act, the result is the same: the ticket ends up clogging up the system at the Judiciary and causing headaches for the rental car company, who ends up paying for the citation as the registered owner of the vehicle.
The Vehicle Monitoring System is available to subscribers of eHawaii.gov and provides a weekly report of any vehicles in the subscriber’s fleet that have violations over the last 31 days. This allows fleet owners to account for citations on their vehicle on a timely basis and thereby avoid penalties for overdue payments on citations. VMS also makes it easier for the fleet owner to track the responsible party for each citation. E-mailed and online reports are an integral part of VMS.
VMS was developed by Hawaii Information Consortium, LLC, at no cost as part of the eHawaii.gov initiative in partnership with various state and county agencies. Subsequent enhancements to VMS will include: notification of “stoppers” or blocks placed in the system that must be removed before a renewal can be processed; online violation payments; vehicle tag renewal; and decommissioning of vehicles. These new services in development are designed to save time and labor costs as well as assist with timeliness to avoid penalties for delinquencies.
“We believe VMS will be a big win for everyone,” said Russell Castagnaro, General Manager of eHawaii.gov. “Rental car companies and fleet vehicle owners can receive timely notices of citations when their lessees forget to notify them of a parking citation, which allows them to focus on their business and not get distracted by delinquent notices that might otherwise be costly and take a lot of time and labor to track. In addition, the Judiciary will be able to process the citations in their system more efficiently and avoid mailing out costly additional notices.”
Subscribers can access VMS at: vms.ehawaii.gov.
About eHawaii.gov
Hawaii’s official Internet portal, www.ehawaii.gov, is managed by Hawaii Information Consortium, LLC, a Hawaii corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of eGovernment firm NIC Inc. (EGOV). Hawaii Information Consortium works with state agencies to enable them to conduct state business online and improve public access to government information.
About NIC
NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV) is the nation’s leading provider of official government portals, online services, and secure payment processing solutions. The company’s innovative eGovernment services help reduce costs and increase efficiencies for government agencies, citizens, and businesses across the country. NIC provides eGovernment solutions for more than 3,500 federal, state, and local agencies in the United States. Additional information is available at www.egov.com.