Julie Albarran, an information technology project manager at Ramstein Air Base, renews her vehicle registration Aug. 15, 2024, at the newly opened substation on the top floor of the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — When three customer service windows for vehicle registration opened at 7 a.m. sharp Thursday at the new Ramstein substation, a lucky few walked out with the necessary paperwork in less time than it takes to get a haircut.
It’s a far cry from the pain a few miles away at Kapaun Air Station, where overwhelming demand and a dysfunctional online queuing system have left many waiting months to drive, leading some service members in community social media groups to attempt to buy and sell appointments for upwards of $100.
The new substation and other changes are part of what military officials hope will restore normalcy to what was once a mundane but reliable task so that service members can drive to work and families can take care of themselves.
Maj. Sheryll Frias showed up at about 6:45 a.m. and nabbed the first spot in the queue at the substation, a refreshing change from her 696th spot in the rolling queue — after seven days of moving up — before she could register her vehicle and turn in the family’s rental.
On Thursday, she just needed to add an additional driver.
“I thought there was going to be a lot of people,” Frias said.
A service member uses the new vehicle registration substation Aug. 15, 2024, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. People who showed up on the substation's first day of operations said they were surprised by the light turnout. The Kaiserslautern Military Community is dealing with an acute shortage of appointments for vehicle registration services. (Jennifer H. Svan/Stars and Stripes)
By the end of the day, 46 customers had been served, base officials said, which may indicate that word has yet to get out about the substation’s availability.
Service members familiar with the situation say there are multiple reasons why the system has experienced such difficulties.
In May, the Army’s base in Sembach stopped offering licensing services for privately owned vehicles, leaving Kapaun as the sole option for tens of thousands of people.
The change came ahead of the summer permanent-change-of-station season, when outgoing service members have limited time to ship or sell a vehicle, and new arrivals need to register their cars, trucks and motorcycles.
Kapaun was notified about the Sembach closing but wasn’t given much time to prepare, said Maj. Kevin Aguilar, the 569th U.S. Forces Police Squadron commander.
“We don’t know why they closed,” Aguilar said. “Once it did happen … we looked at what do we have to do to hopefully make it better.”
Sembach will now reopen full-service vehicle registration services on a walk-in basis starting Tuesday through October, Ramstein officials said they confirmed with the Army.
Meanwhile, the 569th and other base agencies spent about three weeks pulling together a plan for the substation, which is in the space formerly occupied by the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center satellite pharmacy.
But Chief Master Sgt. Tim Herrmann, the 569th’s senior enlisted leader, said the waitlist can’t be attributed to just the Sembach closure.
“We’re seeing an uptick in numbers more than we ever have,” Herrmann said.
Community members have placed considerable blame on a system that at times had limited appointments to between 15 and 22 per day, which are booked out for months. That left hundreds and sometimes over 1,000 people contending for walk-in slots that would never come.
Herrmann and Aguilar expressed skepticism that people were buying and selling appointments given that they were made by name, though multiple people told Stars and Stripes that they had.
Kapaun has since converted to a rolling walk-in queue, but the line remains very long.
The Kaiserslautern area wasn’t the only U.S. military community in Germany to find its vehicle registration system needed an overhaul this summer.
U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria said the system they rolled out July 1 has helped reduce missed appointments and increased capacity. Getting an appointment takes about two weeks on average since introducing the changes. The Tower Barracks no-show rate went from 41% in June and 11% in July with the new system, the Army said.
The Ramstein substation is open Monday to Thursday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Customers can deregister and renew vehicles or change information. They must bring both the front and back license plates for car deregistrations, and the back plate for renewals.
Temporary-to-permanent plate transactions can be done at Kapaun, and initial registration is still only available at the main office.
Renewals for nonoperational vehicles also need to be done at the main office. Aneas Turnbull learned that Thursday at Ramstein after his No. 9 in the walk-in queue was called.
The registration for his motorcycle, which needs to be repaired, expires at the end of the month. Turnbull doesn’t know whether he’ll get in on time, given that he was No. 1,151 in the rolling queue on Wednesday.
“I’ve done this a couple times, registration for my other cars,” he said. “Normally it’s not that bad. This is the worst it’s ever been.”
Stars and Stripes reporter Lydia Gordon contributed to this report.
