Riviera Maya, Q.R. — Hundreds of residents around the state returned home without the newest set of license plates after an online system crash. On Monday, the first day of the state’s license plate exchange, the Secretary of Finance and State Planning (Sefiplan) found their online systems overwhelmed by the sudden demand in services.
The demand lead to a system crash that had some who had lined up for hours, sent home empty handed. Several offices in both Cancun and the state’s capital city of Chetumal experienced the crash.
By 9:30 a.m., some offices were already rerouting residents back to their homes since Sefiplan staff did not know when their online system would be restored.
In Chetumal, personnel assisting with the long lines of waiting people offered to let them leave their paperwork with Sefiplan personnel and return Tuesday morning to pick up their new plates.
However, according to Héctor Contreras, the Director of the Quintana Roo Tax Administration System (SATQ) in Chetumal, the crash lasted less than 30 minutes.
“We had a problem with the system that lasted approximately 25 minutes, a load on the server so we migrated to the other server. It was down for the time it took to migrate the other server,” he said.
Long lines began to form around 6:00 a.m. in most of the busy Sefiplan centres. This year, the state government announced that qualifying taxpayers would be offered free auto insurance with the renewal of their circulation card and exchange of old plates.