The state’s top licensing official said that since the Bay State passed the Work and Family Mobility Act last summer, the number of people looking for a license at the Registry of Motor Vehicles has more than doubled.

It’s been “quite a journey” down the road to giving everyone in Massachusetts a driver’s license, even if they aren’t in the country legally, MassDOT Registrar Colleen Ogilvie said while providing the Board an update after a year of charting new territory.

“We’ve seen a 161% increase in permit issuance, a 132% in drivers license issuance for standard class D and M licenses, and then a 130% increase in license conversions requested,” Ogilvie told the board.

In the year that’s passed, the Registry of Motor Vehicles has also learned that their interpretation programs are lacking, and not just for families looking for licenses under the state’s new law.

Ahead of the law’s implementation, Ogilvie said MassDOT put out registration information in 15 languages, but they’ve seen the need for dozens of different interpreters.

“There is a consistent high demand for interpreters, and these are not are not just WAMF customers. I think that’s an important point for the state: language services are in demand,” the Registrar said.

MassDOT also learned over the course of the last year that it “needs to be careful” about how it presents driver’s information to non-English speaking license applicants, Ogilvie said.

“We can’t use ‘government speak.’ We really need to be aware of how to communicate the policies and the procedures in ways and measures that translate into other languages and in ways that people can understand and support,” she said.

The most requested interpretation services were for Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole, Ogilvie said.

The Board did not ask any questions following the Registrar’s report.

At least 19 states and the District of Columbia allow people who can’t demonstrate their lawful legal presence to get driver’s licenses.

As previously reported, More than 128,000 newly licensed drivers were on Massachusetts roads in the past year, and officials linked the surge to the one-year anniversary of a law allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for licenses.

The RMV said last week that since the Work and Family Mobility Act (WFMA) took effect last July 1, it has issued 183,825 new learner’s permits and 128,079 new driver’s licenses.