International Board of Directors Meeting Summary


June 12-13, 2024

AAMVA’s Board of Directors convened in-person June 12-13 to discuss and act upon strategic initiatives that will shape the year ahead. Many of the topics covered and the approved Board actions are summarized below. These are not formal meeting minutes. For information on approved minutes from past meetings, contact Member Services.

Chair Spencer R. Moore shared with the Board a recap of his work as Chair since they last met in January, including time meeting with all four regions, the Standing Committees, speaking at Lifesavers Conference, and attending international partner events for EReg and CCMTA. 

Similarly, Ian Grossman provided a President & CEO report, including an aggressive travel schedule to meet with members, stakeholders and public speaking engagements. Ian shared the team’s progress toward developing and implementing an updated organization model that will better align our internal resources to deliver on the targets in the Strategic Framework.

 

Financial Matters

The report from Treasurer Gabriel Robinson focused on the mid-year forecast which showed AAMVA performing better than planned in the FY2024 budget, allowing the organization to begin new initiatives earlier than planned while being responsible stewards of member funds. The Board continued its multi-year work to create better financial equity so jurisdictions using technology systems are paying the correct fees associated with the costs of those systems. The Board made two decisions relating to this strategy:

  1. To cover costs associated with AAMVA’s UNI Legacy System (mainframe), states and other customers of that platform will see a price increase in FY2026 (October 1, 2025) similar to phased increases that have occurred since FY2022.
  2. To more accurately allocate NMVTIS State User Fees to reflect a state’s participation in NMVTIS, the Board approved use of the current title pointer records in NMVTIS as the new proxy versus the current proxy of the Federal Highway Administration registered vehicle population. The new proxy will be applied to the FY2026 State User Fees.


Strategic Governance

The Board approved implementation details of the revised model that will focus policy and organizational governance across key Committees:

  • Finance, Investment, and Audit Committee 
  • Information Technology Advisory Committee
  • Driver License Committee
  • Identity Management Committee
  • Vehicle Committee
  • Law Enforcement Committee
  • MVA Operations and Customer Experience Committee

The new Committees will each have a refined/new membership roster and charter effective October 1, 2024. More information about opportunities for senior executives to serve on these committees will be announced by AAMVA later this summer.

Policies

The Board approved several updates and edits to existing policies:

 
Driver Committee

The Driver Committee reported on the continued roll out of the CDL Modernized Test with two recent “Trainer Update” sessions and a five-day “Train-the-Trainer” session scheduled for August. At least 90% of jurisdictions are expected to be using the modernized CDL exam within the next 12 to 18 months. There was also a review of the 2024 CDL Coordinators Conference held in May with more than 200 jurisdiction members, FMCSA, and the AAMVA team. Highlights included updates on the upcoming mandates for Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, Exclusive Electronic Exchange, and National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners. 

The Board reviewed the status of the State-to-State (S2S) Service. With 223.1 million pointers, the system continues to operate well above its Service Level Objective (SLO) of 99.5% uptime with a YTD of 99.84% uptime during core business hours. The response time is also well above its SLO of 99% or response time below 5 seconds with a YTD of 99.92% during core business hours. The system has now 40 Jurisdictions participating including 23 jurisdictions already integrating Driver History Record.


Vehicle

The Vehicle Committee shared significant work done by the NMVTIS State Program Subcommittee and the NMVTIS Law Enforcement Subcommittee, including a joint trip to a salvage yard to gain a better understanding of how vehicles and vehicle title records are processed by industry. The Board also approved the updates for the NMVTIS Best Practices for Title and Registration Program Managers, Edition 5. This document will replace Edition 4 on the AAMVA website later this summer. 

The Vehicle Committee has continued discussions with the National Association of Motor Vehicle Boards and Commissions to address manufacturing, dealer licensing, and vehicle titling of multi-stage vehicles. These discussions led attendees to realize the need to consider a best practice in regulating these vehicles. These collaborative efforts also included discussions on educating members on the many elements of electronic vehicle titling and fraud impacting vehicle dealers and these topics will be included on the 2024 AIC agenda.  

The Committee also briefed the Board on the continued work on electronic vehicle titling. AAMVA is working to provide members with resources for electronic vehicle titling management and are developing a proof of concept that will test interstate interoperable electronic vehicle titling transfers. 


Law Enforcement

The Law Enforcement Committee focused their report on the recent work of the new Cyber-Digital Fraud Working Group which recently held its second in-person meeting and is on schedule to present its first white paper to the Board for approval at the September board meeting. They also reviewed the work of the Nlets Attributes Requirements Task Force, which based on survey responses from eight jurisdictions, has developed a list of standard attributes that Nlets will be incorporating into their system modernization effort. 


Identity Management

The Digital Trust Service launch continues to go well with three jurisdictions’ keys now in the DTS and additional keys to be added very soon. The Committee is projecting to have seven jurisdiction keys before the end of Fiscal Year 2024. The Committee continues to meet regularly to tackle issues of DTS governance, marketing, financial sustainability, mDL implementation guidance, and relying party education and outreach, as well as physical card standardization updates.  

The Committee recently created an mDL Icon to be displayed by relying parties that accept mDL. The Icon will be submitted to ISO for possible inclusion in the 18013-5 standard. They have also drafted standards for jurisdictions to follow when adding their public key into the PDF417 bar code.  

The Card Design Standard Sub-Committee is on schedule to publish the updated Card Design Standard in February 2025. This is an overdue update and will include items such as aligning the transparency between barcode and human-readable data, addressing data fields for card types, including Commercial, Enhanced DL/IDs, Domiciled and Non-Domiciled, and updating and clarifying verbiage and examples for diagrams such as placement, and barcode portrait size.


Information Technology Advisory Committee

The Information Technology Advisory Committee reported on efforts to improve system up-time communication, including sharing timelier information during outages, and making up-time statistics available on the AAMVA web site. They are starting to explore the concept of jurisdiction code sharing and whether AAMVA could have a role in facilitating the sharing of software solutions between jurisdictions. 

The Committee also provided an update on how the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the context of AAMVA’s operations would help to better understand the development and operational implications, the legal, ethical and governance considerations, and the costs implication. This experience would also help AAMVA staff to assess whether some of the experience learned can also be shared with the jurisdictions during future CIO roundtable webinars.

Finally, the Committee provided an update on the SD-WAN network upgrade. A few states have already placed orders and work will continue to ensure that all jurisdictions migrate prior July 2026 when some of the network technology currently used by states will no longer be supported by the vendor. 


U.S. Federal Government Partners

Transportation Security Administration (TSA)

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) provided an update on the recertification process and their utilization of existing regions and individual field offices to start the 3-year rotation of recertification. Kevin Gaddis, Division Director of TSA and new lead of the TSA recertification process, reviewed the full recertification process and timeline. 

Simone Davis, Director of the REAL ID Enrollment Services and Vetting Programs, briefed the Board on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) media events and distribution of checkpoint statements to those that do not have REAL ID compliant documentation. DHS has secured a small amount of funding for an advertising campaign scheduled for end of summer where both radio and TV will be utilized. 

With respect to the Bureau of Prisons card, DHS has informed the Department of Justice (DOJ) that the card is not acceptable for identity purposes under REAL ID due to verification protocols, while recognizing the rules for allowance of documentation at TSA checkpoints differ from the standards of REAL ID. 


Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)

Sue Lawless, Acting Deputy Administrator, provided an update on the agency’s work on the National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS). The update included initiatives regarding driver compensation and women in trucking and transportation equity. They reiterated the investments to safety made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including $80 million in Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) funding to prevent crashes and fatalities involving commercial vehicles. The agency is working on numerous rulemakings, including the Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) requirements for commercial vehicles, speed limiters in commercial vehicles, guardrails for commercial vehicles and updates to the safety scoring methodology obtained and utilized by FMCSA in scoring motor carriers. The agency offered additional assistance to the states on meeting regulatory compliance deadlines through existing grant programs. If states are in need, contact FMCSA about additional assistance opportunities.


Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA)

CVSA President Russ Christoferson, Vice President John Hahn, and Executive Director Collin Mooney provided an update on their Level 8 Inspection program. This update detailed the progress on wireless inspection of a commercial vehicle at highway speeds where the Alliance can auto populate elements of the vehicle and driver to figure out what components of the vehicle are not working properly. While CVSA currently performs 4 million annual inspections, the establishment of the program would increase the number of inspections exponentially. CVSA provided updates on the pilot testing being conducted in Kentucky and Mississippi. CVSA cites those two states included 42 test sites and one motor carrier. In an indicator of the increase in metrics, CVSA had over 2,000 data transfers in one week piloting the program.


Commercial Vehicle Training Association (CVTA)

CVTA Executive Director Andrew Poliakoff briefed the Board on background and shared safety priorities between the organizations. Much of the discussion focused on the implementation of the Entry Level Driver Training (ELDT) rule. Many CVTA members are ELDT providers and third party CDL testers for AAMCA members.


International Registration Plan, Inc. (IRP)

President & CEO Tim Adams provided an update on their growing transactional exchanges, including 1.4 billion transferred through the IRP data repository process. He discussed the need for expanded IDR data and the potential establishment of a working group to look at established places of business. IRP is also looking at shortening the peer review process and dispute resolution. IRP, like AAMVA, is engaged in discussing the future transition to alternative transportation infrastructure modeling, like Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) or Mileage-Based User Fees (MBUF). IRP noted that in making this transition, the commercial vehicle population is already highly regulated so they may be more prepared for the transition than the passenger vehicle fleet.


National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)

Meeting for their first time with the AAMVA Board, Douglas Shinkle, Associate Director, Environment, Energy & Transportation, and his team reviewed the many points of collaboration that have existed for many years between AAMVA and NCSL. They reviewed work done together on issues including automated vehicles, license suspension legislation, mobile driver licenses, and data protection.


Wrap-up and Feedback

The Board of Directors is committed to governing AAMVA in the interest of jurisdiction members. If you have a question about this meeting, or if you have a topic you would like the Board to consider, contact Ian Grossman or contact a Board member through AAMVA’s member directory.