Self-serve tag renewal kiosk opens
Machine gives residents after-hours registration option
The new tag renewal kiosk is located in county parking garage on West Broad Street. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
While there has been a similar kiosk in front of the clerk’s office in Oak Ridge for the past five years, this is the first one in the northern part of the county, and Cole believes it will be even more popular than the one in Oak Ridge.
The new kiosk is in the county parking garage across from the courthouse on West Broad Street, where the county clerk and county trustee have drive-up service already for vehicle registration and property tax payment services.
“This new one is where the bank ATM used to be, and it’s already popular with people who work during the day and have a hard time getting to one of our offices during regular working hours,” Cole said.
To get a renewal sticker and vehicle registration card, the user must insert the renewal notice that came in the mail, he said, then pay the registration fee with a credit card.
“It won’t take cash or checks,” he said.
“We’ve had the one in Oak Ridge for five years, but this one is newer, and is an outdoor-indoor kiosk,” Cole said.
“While it is protected from the weather in the parking garage, it could be set up outside, as it’s weatherproof.
“We’ve had it there three weeks now, and it’s already been a big hit,” he said. “It’s open 24/7, and we’re very fortunate to have two of them in the county now.”
Cole said he ordered the new machine in May, but it did not arrive until October. It cost about $20,000, plus installation expenses, and has a three-year warranty on it that provides regular maintenance.
“The one in Oak Ridge process about 100 to 150 renewals a month, and we’re expecting this one to process 150 to 200 each month,” he said.
Adding the automated renewal kiosk did not result in laying off any workers in the clerk’s office, Cole said.
“We didn’t have to cut an employee,” he said. “We’ve had so many people move in from out of state over the past few years that we have a much heavier volume of work now, so this will really help us.”
He also noted that “out of 95 counties [in Tennessee], about 50 of them have this technology now.”