Blog Archives

Practical test booking service (temporarily) suspended

27/8/2020

What's new? Stuff breaks during Covid. Traffic-jams and back-ups occur. Everyone has to wait their turn.

And so with the online (and telephone) booking service for tests. Such was the demand last Friday that the service had to be taken down to allow a queueing system to be added. It reopened on Wednesday (two days ago). Now it's down again because the 35,625 test slots "sold out within hours".

Another batch will become available on Tuesday 1 September ... the same day as the new registration cars ("70-plates"). Test slots are getting like Ariana Grande tickets!

0 Comments

Do not be alarmed; we just have to wait ...

26/8/2020

The online booking service for practical tests reopened this morning. For individuals this was at 8am. As publicised since the system was overloaded last Friday, you will now be placed in a queue to prevent another overload.

The crash was caused by about 2,000,000 enquiries, from over 870,000 devices. This queuing system, like at a delicatessen counter, should help.

Businesses like mine can book most days from 6am but we only see the same available slots. Slots are being released in rolling 6-week batches (of about 35,000 tests).

It's therefore likely that only about 10% of learners currently seeking a test will find one. (For example, there were none available in Birmingham by 9am today until 6-Oct (the latest date published).

However, 5 tests were available in Redditch for next week, so consider looking wider.

Emergency driving test service now closed

15/8/2020

0 Comments

Click the image for more detail

0 Comments