MA Vehicle Check Program Vendor Making Good Progress Toward a Return to Motor Vehicle Inspection and Emissions Testing Services

SHREWSBURY, Mass., April 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Applus Technologies, Inc., today announced a significant progress update in the process of restoring the MA Vehicle Check safety inspection and emissions testing program to full service.

Applus has completed Phase 1: Remediation and is now in Phase 2: Restoration and System Testing of a very deliberate and methodical three-phase process required to bring the MA Vehicle Check program back online after a malware attack which forced Applus to temporarily shut the testing program down. Throughout these phases, Applus has worked closely with, and under the direction of, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) to ensure that every aspect is fully reviewed and evaluated for a safe and secure return to program testing.

"I am happy to report that a return to service is clearly within sight as we continue to make measurable Phase 2 progress," said Darrin Greene, CEO, Applus Technologies Inc., USA. "We expect the system to remain offline as late as Saturday, April 17, while our team of technicians continue to work one-on-one with every licensed testing facility in the Commonwealth to restore their workstations. Once that work is completed, we will thoroughly evaluate the readiness of the system offline with the RMV and a test group of inspection stations."

Once Phase 2 is completed, Applus will begin Phase 3: Go-Live and Post-Go-Live Support. This final phase will return the more than 1,800 safety inspection and emissions testing stations throughout the state to full testing capabilities for all classes of motor vehicles. All inspection stations in the MA Vehicle Check program will be brought back online with the ability to perform vehicle safety inspections and emissions tests at the exact same time.

"We have to be sure that we have resolved all issues before restarting the system in order to avoid any additional delays or inconvenience once the program is back up and running," said Greene. "We recognize the frustration this temporary outage has caused our agency customers, testing stations and motorists. Our imperative now is to balance the need to restart the program as quickly as possible with our responsibility to ensure every component of the program is free from malware, thoroughly tested, and operating normally before bringing the program back online."

To mitigate the impact on motorists, the RMV has reached out to law enforcement to ask for consideration for expired stickers to ensure motorists don't face fines or penalties as a result of the system being down. In addition, the 60-day retest requirement and free retest have been extended during this time.

The RMV conducted informational virtual meetings - webinars - for station owners and managers and we are sending daily progress updates and important information to all stations and inspectors, and updating the home page of the www.MAVehicleCheck.com website.

The following services have continued uninterrupted for testing stations and inspectors:

• Scheduled and future station and inspector trainings continue as planned with some exceptions.
• New and renewed Inspector licenses continue to be processed.
• Station license renewals continue to be processed.

SOURCE Applus Technologies, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.MAVehicleCheck.com