This small Ruby script scrapes the DVSA appointment cancellations site and automatically re-books practical tests if a more appropriate one becomes available. The tool will also automatically re-book if a more desirable (i.e., closer to your latest desired date) slot becomes available.
Note: Repeated scrapings within a short time frame can trigger DVSA's IP-based CAPTCHA.
To install the dependencies:
bundle install
PhantomJS must be installed on your machine and the phantomjs executable on your PATH.
For Ubuntu/Debian, run sudo apt-get install phantomjs
For Mac OS X and Windows, download from the PhantomJS static build page.
Before running the script, a .env file should be created (or the appropriate environment variables set). See below for an example .env file:
DVSA_DRIVING_LICENSE_NUMBER=driving_license_number
DVSA_APPLICATION_REF_NUMBER=application_reference_number
TEST_CENTRE_DESIRED=name of test centre
TEST_EARLIEST_DATE=earliest date for test eg, 2016/07/04
TEST_LATEST_DATE=latest date for test eg, 2016/07/14
rake auto_book
As described in config/schedule.rb, a Crontab can be setup to execute rake auto_book a few times per hour by executing:
whenever --update-crontab