Would you please tell me approximately how many people go through the
Department of Motor Vehicles, across the US, to either obtain a
license, to renew their license, or to pay for traffic tickets, etc.
each year?

I basically would like to know the volume of "traffic" (ie: the number
of people) who visit Department of Motor Vehicles (for any reason)
each year, across the US.

I realize you may not be able to provide exact numbers, so estimates
will work as long as they are based upon some facts, studies, etc.

Please let me know if you require further clarification.

Thank you!
April

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 Jun 2005 11:44 PDT

Hello HVB,

Thanks for the question.  I found some pretty detailed statistics for
the DMV in NJ.  If you'd like, I can scale these up to the national
level, using population as a proxy.  Would that meet your needs?

If so, I need to understand one thing about your question.  Are you
solely interested in 'foot traffic'?

The reason I ask is that the DMV handles a lot of its paperwork and
inquiries by phone, mail and website, as well as by people actually
stopping by the DMV offices.

Let me know a bit more about what you're after here, and I might be
able to make a credible estimate of the numbers for you.

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by highvoltageblond-ga on 11 Jun 2005 17:31 PDT

That would be great (ie: if you would/could scale the NJ stats up to
the national level, using population as a proxy), THANK YOU!

And, yes, I am only solely interested in 'foot traffic'... The number
of people who actually enter the DMV buildings.

Thank you again.

HVB-ga,

Thanks for your patience on this...I think you'll be surprised at just
how many people have to make a trip to their DMV in the course of a
year!


According to the NJ Department of Transportation's most recent budget document:


http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/omb/publications/05budget/pdf/78.pdf
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
EVALUATION DATA
PROGRAM DATA
Motor Vehicle Services


The Motor Vehicles services will perform the following tasks in 2005:



1,437,499 walk-in customers at agency service centers

3,366,017 -- vehicle inspections

275,185 -- Road tests


All told, this amounts to 5,078,701 face-to-face interactions in the
course of a year.

This is a pretty large number, considering that NJ only has an overall
population of 8,414,350 people...obviously, many people are involved
in making more than one visit.


New Jersey's population is 2.84% of the total US population:

8.4 million / 295.7 million = 2.84%

Using this as a scale-up factor, we can estimate that in the US as a
whole, on an annual basis, there are about:


==========

5,078,701/.0284= 178,827,500


That is, there are 178.8 million visits to motor vehicles departments
across the country.

==========


As this number seemed quite high to me, I wanted to check it against
another state, and found this statistic for Virginia:



http://snipurl.com/fklm

"...In 2001, DMV served 6.9 million customers who conducted 8.6
million transactions in our customer service centers (CSCs)..."



Virginia has a population of about 7 million, and had 6.9 million
walk-in's to DMV.  So it certainly seems to be the case that,
numerically speaking, the number of visitors to DMV's in a state -- or
the country as a whole -- are on par with the overall population of
the state (or of the US as a whole).

I am confident that the 178.8 million visitors figure is a reasonable
estimate for the US.  However, please don't rate this answer until you
have everything you need.  If there's anything more I can do for you,
just post a Request for Clarification, and I'm happy to assist you
further.

pafalafa-ga


search strategy -- Google search on: [ million visitors OR customers ] inurl:dmv

---

Request for Answer Clarification by highvoltageblond-ga on 17 Jun 2005 20:39 PDT

Of course if you wanted to offer another state just as further back up
documentation, that would be amazing, though certainly not necessary.

Thanks again!

---

Clarification of Answer by pafalafa-ga on 18 Jun 2005 05:30 PDT

We aim to please.

The best additional example I found comes from Oregon:


http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV/news/factsstats.shtml

"...Serving over 13,000 customers every day through 64 local offices
and 3 dealer processing centers around the state..."

[13,000 per day x 250 days per year of operation = 3,250,000] 
Oregon has a population of 3.4 million, so once again, the customer
base is just about equivalent to the entire population of the state.


=====


A few other states offer numbers as well, but it's not clear from the
context whether these are walk-ins only:


New York
www.budget.state.ny.us/archive/ fy0405archive/fy0405app1/dmv.pdf 
Department of Motor Vehicles served more than 20 million customers last year 




California
http://www.nospank.net/dmv-3.pdf
The Department of Motor Vehicles has the pleasure of providing
licensing and registration services to over 34 million customers
annually.



Hope that does the trick!


paf

Excellent!  ...as always!

Thanks so much.

Until next time,

paf

THANK YOU!