This script scrapes and stores the availability of timeslots for Car Driving Test at all RTA Serivce NSW centres in the state.

Dependencies

1. Account with RTA NSW where you can have passed knowledge test, hazard test etc.
2. chrome driver executable in your PATH variable
3. Python3 and Selenium installed
4. jq for json processing (for querying multiple locations and creating reports)
5. GNU parallel for querying availability for multiple locations

Usage

Setting up the repo

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/sbmkvp/rta_booking_information

Set your working directory to the repo

cd rta_booking_information

Copy and modify the sample settings file

cp settings_sample.json settings.json

Change the username, password to your own account. If you already have a booking in the system then set the have_booking variable to true. If you want to see the chromedriver UI then set the headless variable to false. The variables wait_timer and wait_timer_car can be increased to make the script suitable for slower internet connections. When the git_upload variable is set to true, the get_all_locations.sh script will try to commit the results back to github to update the website.

Running the script for one location

the scrape_availability.py script takes two inputs - the id of the location and the file in which the result should be stored. The location ids are given in docs/centers.json. The output is a json file with an array of available timeslots and a variable showing the earliest timeslots.

Run the script (for bash based systems e.g. mac/linux/WSL)

./scrape_availability.py locationid file_to_save_results.json

Run the script (for windows)

python3 scrape_availability.py locationid file_to_save_results.json

Running the script for multiple locations

Availability for multiple locations could be scraped using the get_all_locations.sh script. Make sure there is a centers.json file in the docs folder with a list of centers you want to find availabilty for. This file is included in the repo but note that this changes regularly in the rta website so make sure you pull the latest file from the repo before running. Remove any files created during the last run (errors.txt, errors_old.txt,results.json etc). The script when successful outputs results.json file in the docs folder and updates the update-time.txt file there.

./get_all_locations.sh

Once completed, the results could be viewed at http://localhost:8888 after running a simple http server at the docs folder by running,

python3 -m http.server 8888

This script and the one below works only in systems with POSIX compliant shell. For windows, please use a POSIX compliant shell like git-bash or cygwin. We also need to install jq and parallel for windows. You can also use WSL and create a full linux environment inside windows.

Create a csv report

Alternatively you can convert the results stored in the docs folder into a csv by using the create_status_report script.

./create_status_report docs/centers.json docs/results.json

Containerised implementation

The containerised implementation can be used to run this script on the cloud at regular intervals. If you want to host a github site with the results, please change the repo address in dockerfile to yours and then create the gitconfig and git-credential files from the samples provided. Then build the continer by doing,

docker build -t rta_booking_availability .

Once the image has been built you can run the container with regular update interval by,

docker run --restart unless-stopped --name rta_booking_availability -d rta_booking_availability

If your want to add a delay of n seconds between subsequent updates, add sleep(n) to the end of get_all_locations.shscript.

Note

This has been tested to work in my system but there are numerous edge cases where this might fail.

• Your account status is different to mine
• RTA changes website.
• RTA IT team blocks your IP
• The website is very slow

If the website is slow and the script fails at selecting the driving test on a new booking try increasing the wait_timer.

Disclaimer:

• For personal use only.
• Dont break the law or cause disruption using this.
• Using automated scripts irresponsibily can cause booking loss, disruption of services etc. be careful and know what you are doing.
• You are responsible for your actions.