Is the Route-Led driving test app a good way to learn a new area to drive in?

Dominic Remmers from Harpenden, travelled 107 miles to take a driving test in Derby in a bid to avoid huge waiting times in St Albans

Some learner drivers are travelling more than 100 miles to take their tests at centres with the shortest waiting times due to the huge delays for exams in some parts of the country caused by a bulging backlog of budding motorists built up during Covid.

On Thursday, This is Money exclusively revealed the average waiting times for practical driving tests at all 243 centres in Britain, with some extending to half a year.

The postcode lottery of delays showed a massive four and a half month gulf between test centres with the shortest wait times and those with expansive booking lists.

Dominic Remmers, 18, from Harpenden was told last summer he would be joining the back of a three-month queue at his local driving test centre in St Albans if he wanted to take the test there.

So instead, he made the decision to travel two hours and 107 miles north to Derby where he could sit the test within a month, but in a city he’d never driven before.

In order to learn the roads he’d be tackling, Dominic utilised a new ‘cheat code’ app that plots the test routes at every driving centre in the country.

Official figures show the latest recorded waiting times for driving tests are now around double what they were in 2020, with learners expected to wait for more than three and a half months on average. 

READ MORE: Driving test waiting time postcode lottery

The DVSA’s data shows that the longest average waiting time at a driving test centre in the last 12 months is almost half a year. However, the shortest is just a month.

Route-Led’s research revealed Wales had the shortest average waiting time of two months at the end of March this year. 

Scotland’s driving test centres have the longest average waiting time of almost four months and those for England are just over three and a half months.

In terms of the specific test centres, Bradford (Thornbury), Bolton (Manchester), Hamilton, Hendon (London) and Glasgow (Shieldhall) had the longest average delays of nearly six months at the end of March this year.

In contrast Cardigan and Carmarthen has the shortest average waiting time of just one month. 

> Read the full report 

Despite the DVSA increasing testing hours, bringing older invigilators out of retirement and introducing new rules and stipulations to clear the backlog, it has so far failed to reduce the logjam.

This is why some learners have taken matter into their own hands to find the locations with the shortest waiting times and book their tests there in a bid to get their hands on a licence sooner. 

‘I started looking for a test slot at the beginning of July 2022 but the earliest slot in St Albans was October that year,’ Dominic said. 

‘I was desperate to get an earlier slot so I started searching the official test website every hour. I kept changing the postcode up and down the country until I found a slot in July.

‘But it was in Derby, 107 miles away.

‘I was confident about my ability to drive but had never practiced any of the test routes there.’

Dominic said he then found the Route-Led ‘Driving Test Routes‘ app while searching on his phone.

It provides learners with the routes commonly used by invigilators at all 243 driving test centres up and down the country.

‘My dad and I went up to Derby the day before my test and we practiced routes from the app. 

‘This boosted my confidence that I wasn’t going to get caught out on the exam. The next day, I took my test and passed,’ he said.

‘The exam route ended up being a combination of the routes in the Driving Test Routes app so I was pretty pleased I had managed to practice them the day before. 

‘I was really happy that I switched test centres as it reduced my wait time by three months. 

‘I think some people are scared to try slots at different places around the country but I would just say that, if you’re good enough to pass your test, you’re good enough to drive anywhere in the country.’

The ‘cheat code’ app for driving tests 

Route-Led LLP was incorporated in September 2010 by co-founders Martin Williams and David Hesketh.

David tells us that the business initially provided driving test routes – at a cost – via satellite navigation systems only.

This had been powered by test route information shared by the DVSA in the early noughties, though the PDF-format directions were swiftly withdrawn from public view after only a matter of months.

In June 2021, the Driving Test Routes app was launched for both Apple and Android.

The Driving Test Routes app was launched in June 2021 and provides directions for the routes used for practical examinations at all 243 test centres in Britain

‘We were fortunate enough to have downloaded all of the published routes that the DVSA had made available,’ David tells us.

‘We have found various methods of updating these, including collaboration with driving instructors around the country and our large customer base.’

This includes customers who have requested refunds having been taken on slightly modified versions of the route than those on the app.

When reimbursed, customers are asked to provide information on how the route differed to what the app showed so that Route-Led update its guidance on a daily basis.

‘In a way it has been very fortuitous timing to launch the app because we’d just been through Covid and demand started going mental due to the huge backlog caused by tests being unavailable throughout much of 2020 during lockdown,’ David explains.

David Hesketh, co-founder of Route-Led, says the routes are updated regularly using ‘collaboration with driving instructors around the country and the app’s large customer base’

He says the app has grown by 8 per cent monthly since launch and over 220,000 people have installed it in less than two years.

Before the pandemic – around 1.6million practical tests are taken annually, though some are repeat examinations after failing, with the average pass rate currently at a fraction under 50 per cent.

The app costs a monthly subscription of £12.99 for one test centre. Adding an additional centre’s route costs a one-off price of £9.99.

Originally, the app was listed in the ‘navigation’ section of the App Store, but has since been moved to the ‘education’ sector, alongside other driving test applications. And it is now among the top 20 highest grossing in that segment. 

David points out that if you filter every app by the highest grossing, they’re nearly all driving instruction, language apps – like Duolingo – or applications to teach you to play a musical instrument. 

It’s not just learners who are using the app – approved driving instructors are utilising it to teach lessons in regions they don’t usually cover but there has been an increase in demand due to varying waiting times across the country

Instructors are using the app to learn different test centre routes due to backlog 

And the app isn’t only used by learners. 

Instructors are utilising it too – and they account for the base level of demand for the application.

‘Driving instructors want the tool because they are seeing an increase in people learning in their local area but are unable to get a test date early enough at their nearest centre – and therefore book somewhere else,’ David said.

‘When they tell their instructors, many of them who have traditionally operated only locally are needing to learn what exam routes will be in different towns and cities to ensure their customers are confident on those roads too.’

Driving instructors can have up six free test centre routes on top of their monthly subscription.

David Grant, an approved driving instructor who operates predominantly in Reading, High Wycombe and Slough, says he downloaded the app after receiving a rise in customers telling him they were taking their test in Greenham and Aylesbury due to shorter waiting times.

‘My students are having to book driving tests miles away from their homes, due to the very long (circa five month) driving test lead time locally,’ David says.

‘The app is useful for teaching students in areas they are less familiar with.’

The app has also been launched in Ireland, Canada and in California and New York in the US. It will shortly be available in Australia.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk