Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in putting an end to automated bots exploiting the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency driving test booking service by buying up appointments and reselling them at inflated prices, and ensuring a fair and transparent booking system for learner drivers.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is aware that some companies have been using bots or third-party applications to snap up appointments on its public booking service, as soon as they become available, leaving fewer test appointments for genuine learner drivers to purchase directly from the DVSA.

These apps or bots are not approved by the DVSA.

In January this year, the DVSA changed the terms and conditions for using the booking service to help prevent anyone from selling tests at profit. Since then, the DVSA has issued 192 warnings, 532 suspensions, and closed 438 businesses for misuse of its booking service.

To ensure its booking system is used correctly, the DVSA has also:

• stopped accepting new automatic online registrations to use its tests booking service.
• stopped accepting any new registrations from companies who do not directly employ a driving instructor.
• removed registrations not linked to driving instructors.
• reduced the number of times a driving test appointment can be changed from 10 to the pre-pandemic limit of 6.

Following these changes, there has been a significant drop in traffic to these services because the DVSA is successfully identifying and blocking apps or bots. However, these applications are constantly evolving and changing and the DVSA’s work on this is ongoing