VEHICLE INSPECTIONS
AUSTIN — Williamson County residents might have to wait to get their vehicles inspected.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is notifying drivers that they may experience a delay in obtaining an emissions inspection for vehicles registered in emissions counties due to intermittent connectivity issues. Williamson County is one of 17 counties in Texas where vehicles are required to receive inspections for emissions.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has notified DPS that the company it contracts with to operate the Texas Information Management System, which facilitates the vehicle inspection testing system, had its corporate office damaged by severe weather this week. That office houses one of the data centers, and it is inaccessible.
The company is implementing its disaster recovery plan, and the network is operating on secondary backup servers. However, at this time, some inspection stations may experience an outage or intermittent connectivity issues that may impact drivers trying to obtain a vehicle inspection, which may cause delays.
DPS is working with TCEQ and vehicle inspection station owners on this matter. There is no timeline for when the data center will be accessible.
Vehicle owners are encouraged to monitor DPS’ social media channels for updates as they become available. In addition to Williamson and neighboring Travis County, the other counties where vehicle owners are required to receive emissions inspections are El Paso, Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Montgomery, Collin, Dallas, Denton, Ellis, Johnson, Kaufman, Parker, Rockwall and Tarrant.
