Clackamas County Modernizes Public Services with Wavetec

Executive Summary

High-traffic government facilities face a version of the same operational problem as retailers and banks, but with less room for error: unpredictable visitor volumes, service times that vary by case type, and a public with limited patience for standing in an unmarked line. In a courthouse, a confusing or poorly managed queue does not just erode satisfaction, it can affect a visitor’s confidence in the service itself.

Clackamas County Courthouse, serving one of Oregon’s largest and fastest-growing populations, opened a new facility designed to accommodate over 430,000 residents across 16 courtrooms and 20 judicial chambers. Rather than replicate the manual, paper-ticket approach common to many public buildings, the county partnered with Wavetec to design an end-to-end queue management and visitor flow platform for its public-facing service areas.

The deployment combines self-service check-in kiosks, LED counter displays, a centralized call-forward workflow through Lobby Leader, Donatello digital signage for real-time visitor communication, and the Spectra analytics dashboard for live operational visibility. As with deployments across Wavetec’s global client base, the hardware, software, and local deployment support were delivered end-to-end by Wavetec’s own teams rather than assembled from third-party vendors, a full-stack model that keeps a single vendor accountable for uptime, integration, and long-term support.

At the center of the deployment is Spectra, Wavetec’s enterprise queue management platform, which synchronizes visitor ticketing, service progression, and operational analytics in real time. Supporting the platform are self-service kiosks, Donatello digital signage, and browser-based dashboards that together create a transparent, efficient, and scalable visitor experience.

Since going live, the platform has replaced manual queue tracking with automated ticketing, live visitor communication, and centralized reporting across the courthouse’s public service counters. Staff can now see queue depth and service progress in real time rather than relying on visual estimation, and visitors receive clear, consistent updates on where they stand in line.

More than a ticketing upgrade, the deployment established a standardized operating model for the courthouse’s public service areas while preserving the flexibility needed to handle the varied, often time-sensitive nature of court-related visits. Administrators gained live visibility into visitor flow, staff gained a structured workflow, and visitors gained a predictable, transparent service journey.

This deployment reflects Wavetec’s broader approach to public-sector customer experience: configurable, enterprise-grade platforms that bring together hardware, software, analytics, and workflow design into a single connected system.

Why This Problem Goes Beyond One Courthouse

Courthouses and other high-traffic government facilities are among the most operationally demanding public environments. Unlike a retail checkout line, a courthouse lobby serves visitors with fundamentally different needs on the same day: someone paying a fine, someone attending a hearing, someone filing paperwork with a strict deadline. Service times vary widely, and a visitor’s tolerance for uncertainty is often lower given what is at stake.

The gap between public and private-sector service experience is well documented. A 2023 Deloitte survey of 5,800 individuals across 13 countries found that citizen satisfaction with digital government services trails private-sector customer experience by roughly 21 percentage points, a gap Deloitte argues has direct consequences for public trust as much as for convenience.

The consequences of unmanaged queues are visible well beyond Oregon. A 2025 audit from the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor found that average wait times at that state’s motor vehicle offices had climbed to over an hour, up more than 15 percent since 2019, with nearly 14 percent of visits exceeding two and a half hours. The audit linked the decline directly to a lack of dedicated operational visibility and planning capacity, the same gap queue management platforms are designed to close.

The pattern is consistent across national benchmarks as well. Forrester’s US Federal Customer Experience Index has repeatedly found that the federal government’s average CX score trails the private-sector average by roughly 11 percentage points, lower than any other sector Forrester tracks, a gap it attributes largely to unclear processes and limited visibility into service progress rather than to any single point of failure.

Citizens describe the same gap in their own words. A global Accenture survey found that 53 percent of respondents said accessing public services felt frustrating, and 74 percent pointed specifically to slow or unclear processes as the main source of friction, well ahead of unhelpful staff or outright technology failures.

Agencies that have modernized report the opposite trend. Discussing initiatives showcased at the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators’ 2025 annual conference, Kyndryl noted that self-service kiosks, digital identity tools, and modernized back-end systems are becoming standard features of citizen-centric government service, with agencies like Arizona’s motor vehicle division bringing door-to-door wait times down to around 20 minutes.

For Clackamas County, these dynamics made a traditional, manual queue insufficient for a newly built facility designed to handle hundreds of thousands of residents across dozens of courtrooms and chambers.

The Challenge: Coordinating Visitor Flow in a High-Traffic Public Facility

As a high-traffic government facility, Clackamas County Courthouse faced ongoing challenges in managing large volumes of visitors across a newly expanded footprint. Key challenges included:

•       Overcrowded waiting areas with no clear queue visibility for visitors.
•       Manual service tracking that slowed staff productivity and left room for inconsistent visitor handling.
•       Uncertainty and frustration among visitors due to unclear waiting times and unclear queue order.
•       A lack of real-time data for performance monitoring and day-to-day operational planning.

The courthouse needed a scalable, automated queue management solution capable of organizing walk-in visitors, streamlining service operations across multiple public counters, and giving administrators live visibility into daily activity and staff performance, all while operating within the security and accessibility standards expected of a public judicial facility.

Wavetec’s Architecture: A Connected Visitor Flow Ecosystem

Rather than issuing simple ticket numbers, Wavetec designed an integrated visitor flow ecosystem that coordinates every stage of the courthouse visit, from queue entry and service sequencing to visitor communication, staff workflow, and operational analytics.

The deployment combines five components. Self-service kiosks manage visitor check-in and ticket issuance. Lobby Leader provides the centralized ticketing and call-forward workflow. LED counter displays guide visitors to the correct service point. Donatello digital signage delivers real-time visual and voice communication. The Spectra dashboard gives administrators live analytics on queue performance, service duration, and staff utilization.

These components communicate continuously through Spectra’s central orchestration engine, so every visitor interaction is synchronized across kiosks, displays, and dashboards, allowing the courthouse to deliver a consistent visitor experience across its public service areas while giving management enterprise-wide visibility into daily operations.

Self-Service Kiosks: Modernizing Queue Entry

The visitor journey begins with Wavetec’s 17-inch self-service kiosks, compact, enterprise-grade touchscreen terminals designed to simplify queue entry while minimizing staff intervention. Rather than requiring visitors to approach staff to determine where they belong in line, visitors independently obtain a physical ticket and are automatically entered into the virtual queue within seconds.

The kiosk interface can be configured to accommodate multiple service categories, multilingual environments, and location-specific workflows, an important consideration for a courthouse serving visitors attending hearings, filing documents, or paying fines on the same day. Every ticket issued is immediately synchronized with Spectra, allowing the platform to monitor queue depth and update digital signage in real time.

LED Counter Displays and Lobby Leader: Guiding Visitors to the Right Counter

Clear, high-visibility LED displays installed at each service counter guide visitors to the correct location and reduce confusion in a facility with multiple courtrooms, chambers, and service windows operating simultaneously. Lobby Leader, Wavetec’s centralized ticketing and call-forward workflow, ensures smooth service sequencing and coordinates staff across counters so that visitor order remains fair and predictable even during peak periods.

Donatello Digital Signage: Transparent Visitor Communication

Clear communication plays a measurable role in reducing perceived wait times. Even when actual wait time is unchanged, visitors experience greater confidence when they understand where they stand in the process. Donatello digital signage delivers synchronized visual and voice announcements that keep visitors informed of ticket progress and direct them to counters efficiently. Whenever a staff member advances the queue, Spectra transmits the update to the display network in real time, refreshing the ‘now serving’ display while triggering an automated voice announcement.

Spectra Dashboard: Real-Time Operational Visibility

The Spectra dashboard gives administrators live data on queue performance, service duration, and staff utilization directly through a browser-based interface. Rather than relying on manual observation, supervisors can identify congestion before service levels deteriorate, redeploy staff, or open additional counters proactively. Because the dashboard runs through standard web browsers, deployment requires minimal additional hardware while remaining accessible from multiple points within the facility.

Security, Accessibility & Compliance Standards

Deployments inside a public judicial facility carry a higher bar for governance than most commercial environments, since the platform handles visitor data and operational analytics within a setting bound by public-sector accessibility and data-handling requirements. Wavetec’s platform is built to ISO 27001 information security standards and has undergone independent SOC 2 Type II assessment, confirming that controls for security, availability, and confidentiality hold up over time rather than at a single audit point.

Access to Spectra’s dashboards and configuration tools is controlled through role-based access control (RBAC), so courthouse staff, administrators, and supervisors see only the functions and data relevant to their role, with every configuration change and service action captured in an audit log for compliance and oversight purposes. Kiosk and signage interfaces are designed with ADA and WCAG accessibility guidelines in mind, an essential requirement for a public judicial facility serving visitors of varying ability.

Performance Evidence: Operational Impact Since Go-Live

The effectiveness of Wavetec’s platform is reflected in the day-to-day operation of the courthouse’s public service areas rather than in a single before-and-after snapshot.

•       Streamlined Service Flow: Automated ticketing and digital displays organized the visitor process, reducing congestion and ensuring consistent handling across counters.
•       Improved Communication: Real-time voice and visual updates kept visitors informed, reducing confusion in busy waiting areas.
•       Higher Staff Efficiency: Centralized dashboards and automated queues allow staff to serve more visitors with less manual coordination.
•       Enhanced Visitor Experience: Visitors gained shorter perceived wait times, greater transparency, and a more professional environment for what are often stressful visits.
•       Data-Driven Operations: The Spectra dashboard gives managers real-time insight to track performance, spot trends, and plan staffing.

Media Recognition and Community Impact

The success of this transformation was also recognized in local media coverage, with Fox News and KGW News highlighting the courthouse’s modern design and the visible role of Wavetec’s queue management technology in improving the visitor experience.

Why Wait-Time Improvements Matter for Public Trust

Reducing wait times is not only an efficiency question for a public facility, it is a trust question. McKinsey’s research on customer experience in government found that satisfied government customers are, on average, nine times more likely to trust the agency serving them, and five times more likely to view a public service as a good use of taxpayer money. For a courthouse, where public confidence in fair and orderly process is part of the institution’s function, that link between service quality and trust carries particular weight.

This is consistent with what a structured, transparent queue is designed to deliver: not just a shorter wait, but a visitor who leaves confident that the process was fair and well run.

Standardized Service Across a Growing Public Facility

Prior to implementation, individual courthouse service areas relied on manual practices that naturally varied by counter and by staff member. By introducing Spectra as the centralized orchestration platform, Wavetec standardized the visitor journey across the courthouse’s public-facing counters while allowing for department-specific configuration where required.

Every visitor now follows a predictable path from ticket issuance through service completion, reinforcing consistency in a facility where confidence in fair, orderly process matters as much as speed.

Improved Staff Productivity

For frontline staff, the deployment removed many of the manual tasks traditionally associated with queue management, remembering visitor order, monitoring waiting areas, and responding to repeated inquiries about wait times. With Wavetec’s integrated workflow, these administrative tasks are largely automated, freeing staff to focus on the service itself rather than queue administration.

Data-Driven Continuous Improvement

Every visitor interaction contributes to a growing base of operational data that administrators can use to identify peak periods, plan staffing, and monitor service-level performance over time. Rather than relying on assumptions, staffing and operational decisions can now be informed by measurable data captured through the Spectra dashboard.

Continuous Innovation

As citizen expectations continue to evolve, Wavetec continues to invest in AI-assisted forecasting, intelligent dashboards, and enhanced service orchestration, including Nexia-Q, Wavetec’s AI guidance layer for self-service kiosks, and WhatsApp-based queuing options, both part of the same broader Spectra ecosystem available to public-sector clients looking to extend the model used at Clackamas County with conversational, AI-assisted self-service.

This direction matches where public-sector technology investment is heading more broadly. A Gartner survey of government CIOs found that improving the overall citizen experience is a top 2026 priority for over a third of respondents, alongside rising investment in AI and automation, a signal that platforms capable of both operational reporting and AI-assisted service will matter more, not less, in the years ahead.

Related Deployments

Clackamas County Courthouse is one of several public-sector facilities where Wavetec has applied the same core building blocks, self-service ticketing, centralized queue orchestration, real-time signage, and manager-facing analytics, to bring structure and visibility to high-traffic government service environments.

St. Lucie County Tax Collector’s Office, Florida

St. Lucie County Tax Collector’s Office partnered with Wavetec to modernize customer service across three branches handling DMV and tax transactions. Before the deployment, the office faced lengthy, unpredictable wait times, overcrowded lobbies, and a lack of real-time visibility into queue lengths and staffing levels. Wavetec delivered a fully integrated customer flow ecosystem combining appointments, virtual queues, and SMS updates. As at Clackamas County, the platform gave administrators the operational visibility they previously lacked. See the St. Lucie County case study.

Schenectady County DMV, New York

Schenectady County DMV faced overcrowded lobbies, long wait times, and inefficient manual processes before implementing Wavetec’s Enterprise Queue Management System. The deployment introduced self-service kiosks, appointment booking, and SMS and email updates on queue status, allowing visitor information to be processed before they reached the counter. Where Clackamas County’s deployment centers on a multi-courtroom judicial facility, Schenectady’s centers on DMV service windows, but both rely on the same combination of self-service check-in, real-time communication, and centralized reporting to bring order to high-volume public service environments. See the Schenectady County DMV case study.

Conclusion

Clackamas County Courthouse set out to modernize its public service operations for a newly expanded facility, but the outcome extended well beyond faster queues.

Working closely with the county, Wavetec designed a connected visitor flow ecosystem that integrated self-service kiosks, centralized queue orchestration, LED counter displays, digital signage, and real-time operational dashboards into a single platform.

The result is a standardized operating model that improves service consistency across the courthouse’s public counters while giving visitors greater transparency, staff a more efficient workflow, and administrators clearer operational insight, all within the security, accessibility, and governance standards expected of a public judicial facility.

For public-sector organizations managing high-traffic service environments, the Clackamas County deployment illustrates a broader lesson: modernizing the visitor experience is less about introducing a single new device and more about connecting people, processes, and digital touchpoints through one platform.

FAQ

Why did the Clackamas County Courthouse choose Wavetec?

The courthouse needed more than a traditional ticketing system for a newly expanded facility serving over 430,000 residents. Wavetec delivered a configurable visitor flow platform that integrated self-service kiosks, centralized queue orchestration, digital signage, and real-time analytics to standardize service across its public counters.

Which Wavetec products were deployed?

The deployment included self-service kiosks, Lobby Leader, LED counter displays, Donatello digital signage, and the Spectra queue management and analytics dashboard.

How does Spectra improve courthouse operations?

Spectra centralizes queue orchestration by managing ticket issuance, service progression, and operational analytics. It synchronizes every connected device in real time, keeping visitor communication consistent and giving administrators visibility into queue performance across counters.

Can this solution support other government facilities?

Yes. Because Wavetec’s platform is modular and configurable, it can be adapted for DMVs, tax offices, county service centers, and other high-traffic public facilities, as demonstrated by deployments at St. Lucie County and Schenectady County DMV.

Sources

Deloitte, “Enhancing customer experience,” Deloitte Insights, 2024, citing a 2023 survey of 5,800 individuals across 13 countries on the gap between digital government and private-sector customer experience.

North Carolina Office of the State Auditor, “DMV Audit Recommends Exploring Separation of DMV and DOT as Customer Experience Worsens,” August 2025.

Kyndryl, “Insights from the AAMVA Annual Conference,” September 2025.

Forrester, “The US Federal Customer Experience Index Rankings, 2025,” comparing federal government CX scores against the private-sector average.

Accenture, “Public service experience through a new lens,” 2022, based on a multi-country survey on friction points in accessing government services.

McKinsey & Company, “The global case for customer experience in government,” citing the McKinsey Public Sector Journey Benchmark Survey on the link between satisfaction and citizen trust.

Gartner, “Gartner Survey Reveals 52% of Government CIOs Outside of the U.S. Expect IT Budgets to Increase in 2026,” November 2025.