Motorists were greeted with long waits for a second straight day at some Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicle locations Tuesday, after a new software system and driver’s license requirements went into effect this week.

Employees at the downtown Boston RMV were warning customers of waits of 3½ hours, while at the branch in Lawrence a motorist tweeted that some customers had been waiting about four hours.

Yet officials said they’d seen improvement from Monday, when delays in Boston stretched as long as five hours and the average wait time statewide was one hour and 20 minutes.

By 6 p.m. Tuesday, approximately 6,857 customers had been served at RMV offices, compared with 6,321 customers served at the end of Monday, the state Department of Transportation said.

“Today’s customer wait time experience varied by location’’ but was shorter than on Monday, the department said in a statement.

More customers also arrived with applications filled out and proper documents required to obtain a license, renewal, learner’s permit, or identification card, the statement said.

The RMV this week began issuing licenses that follow new federal standards for identification, which require motorists to appear in person at Registry branches and provide extensive documentation of a person’s citizenship, immigration status, and Massachusetts residency.

The system launched after a three-day shutdown of RMV technology to install new software, from Thursday night to Monday morning. The new software has functioned as intended, officials say.

But wait times have still spiked across Massachusetts because employees are getting used to the new system, the new licenses take longer to issue because of the paperwork, and the Friday shutdown of the RMV created a customer backlog.

Governor Charlie Baker, who has boasted of quicker lines at the RMV under his administration, said officials anticipated delays as the new system came online.

“It’s our goal and our anticipation that over the course of the next couple weeks, as the early part of this change takes effect and as we continue to educate . . . that the lines should go down, the waiting time should go down,’’ Baker said Tuesday.

That was little solace to Chris Lin, a Boston University student who showed up at the downtown RMV for a license renewal and had all the needed documentation with him. He waited about an hour before giving up.

“I saw 200 people waiting, so I’m just not going to do it today,’’ he said. “I understand it’s the first few days for this system, but I’d want it to be more streamlined.’’

Lin said he has little choice but to renew his license this week because it is expiring. He plans to try again Wednesday but is prepared for a long wait. “I’ll bring my laptop and Nintendo Switch and hopefully kill some time,’’ he said.

In October 2020, drivers will need the new “Real ID’’ licenses, which are compliant with a 2005 law, if they want to use a driver’s license to board an airplane or enter a federal building. The license requires a trip to RMV or AAA locations and can’t be renewed online.

Drivers can still renew a regular Massachusetts license online, though they now must enter data from a passport, birth certificate, or immigration papers during the renewal process.

Those motorists will instead need to use a passport or another federal ID to board flights after 2020.

Correspondent Adam Sennott contributed. Adam Vaccaro can be reached at adam.vaccaro@globe.com.