RoutePOV
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Instructors and pupils8 min readUpdated

Are DVSA driving test routes published? No, and here is what to do instead

The short answer

No. DVSA stopped publishing driving test routes in 2010 and has not published them since. Any site offering the official routes for your test centre is offering something it cannot prove it has, and since 24 November 2025 examiners have had more freedom over where the test goes, which makes a fixed list of routes less useful than it has ever been. What does help is time on the roads around the test centre, with the awkward junctions understood rather than memorised.

What happened in 2010

Until 2010 the routes were published. Instructors could and did take pupils round the official routes, and some pupils learned them the way you learn a phone number: in order, by rote, without much understanding of the roads. The publication stopped, and it has not resumed.

That is the whole factual basis of the situation, and it is worth being careful about the detail. It is often claimed online that a specific Information Commissioner decision settled the matter. We have not been able to verify a particular decision reference, so we do not cite one. What is verifiable is simpler and enough: the routes are not published, and no official source provides them.

So what are the sites selling?

Mostly reconstructions. Somebody drives around a test centre, notes where tests seem to go, and records a route. Some are GPX files you can load into a sat nav. Some are videos. A few are careful and genuinely useful as local-area guides. The problem is the framing: 'the real test route for your centre, updated for 2026' is a claim about provenance, and the provenance does not exist.

  • Nobody outside DVSA holds the route list, so nobody outside DVSA can confirm a reconstruction matches it.
  • Test centres commonly have several routes, and the examiner decides which one and can deviate.
  • Since 24 November 2025 examiners have been asked to include more rural and high-speed road content where the roads around the centre allow it, which changes what a route looks like.
  • Advertised pass-rate improvements attached to route products are the kind of claim UK advertising rules expect you to be able to substantiate, and they are not substantiated.

Would knowing the exact route even help?

Less than people assume, and less every year. Half of candidates fail: in the year to March 2026 there were 1,998,608 car practical tests and 1,000,043 passes, a pass rate of about 50.1%. Those failures are overwhelmingly about observation, judgement and control, not about not knowing which road comes next.

The test is also less route-shaped than it used to be. Independent driving can now run for the whole test, so a substantial part of it is deliberately not the examiner reading out a memorisable sequence at all. Meanwhile the 9 June 2026 rule limiting test moves to the three nearest centres means a learner is being tested near where they learned, so local familiarity is available to anyone who bothers to build it.

What actually prepares a learner

  1. Cover the roads around the centre, not a route

    Every A-road, every awkward roundabout, every 60mph single carriageway within a few miles of the test centre. Not in a fixed order. The aim is that no road in that area is new, whichever way the examiner goes.

  2. Name what is difficult about each place, out loud

    'This roundabout needs the right-hand lane early because the exit comes fast' is transferable. 'Second exit here' is not. The first survives the examiner choosing a different exit.

  3. Practise the parts of the test that are not the route

    Sat-nav following, sign-following for the one test in five that uses it, the three normal stops, the manoeuvres, and the emergency stop that now appears in about one test in seven.

  4. Give the learner something to revisit between lessons

    Most of a two-hour lesson is gone by the weekend. A route they can play back on their phone, with your note on each point, is the difference between a lesson that happened and a lesson they still have.

If you are an instructor being asked about this

Pupils will bring you a route they bought or found on YouTube. It is worth having an answer ready that is neither dismissive nor endorsing. Something close to: the roads in it are probably useful, the claim that it is the test route is not something anyone can back up, and we are going to practise the whole area rather than one loop, because that works whichever way you get sent.

Frequently asked questions

Are DVSA driving test routes available to the public?

No. DVSA stopped publishing driving test routes in 2010 and no official source provides them today. Sites offering the real routes for a test centre are offering reconstructions they cannot verify against the official list.

Is it cheating to practise on driving test routes?

Practising on the roads around a test centre is normal, sensible preparation and nobody objects to it. The problem is memorising a supposed route as a sequence, which produces a learner who cannot cope when the examiner does something unexpected, and any part of the test that is independent driving is designed to do exactly that.

Why did DVSA stop publishing test routes?

Publication ended in 2010. The pattern it created was rote learning of specific routes rather than the ability to drive unfamiliar roads safely, which is what the test is meant to assess.

Do driving test routes change?

Yes. Centres typically have several routes, examiners choose between them and can deviate, and since 24 November 2025 examiners have been asked to include more rural and high-speed road content where local roads permit. A route list captured at one point in time drifts out of date.

What is the best way to prepare for the roads around a test centre?

Cover the area rather than a loop: the A-roads, the difficult roundabouts and the national speed limit roads within a few miles of the centre, with the reason each one is awkward named explicitly. Then give the learner a way to revisit those places between lessons.

Are driving test routes always the same?

No. A test centre normally has several routes, the examiner chooses between them, and they can deviate from a route during the test. Since 24 November 2025 examiners have also been asked to include more rural and high-speed road content where the local roads allow it.

Can you get the same driving test route twice?

It is possible, since each centre works from a limited set of routes, but it is not something you can count on or request. A candidate resitting a test has no way of knowing which route they will get.

Do examiners change the driving test route?

They can, and they do. An examiner may deviate from a route for roadworks, a closure, traffic or timing. This is one of the reasons memorising a supposed route as a sequence is fragile preparation.

Can you download driving test routes?

You can download files that people have recorded and labelled as test routes, often as GPX. What you cannot download is the official route list, because DVSA has not published it since 2010. Treat a downloaded file as a local-area guide, which is useful, rather than as the route, which nobody can verify.

Are the driving test route apps accurate or legitimate?

They are legitimate businesses selling reconstructions. Whether any given route is accurate cannot be checked against the official list, because that list is not published, so accuracy claims are unverifiable in both directions. The roads in them are usually genuinely near the test centre and worth driving; the label 'the real route' is the part to ignore.

How many driving test routes does a test centre have?

It varies by centre and is not published. What is published is that examiners choose from more than one route and may deviate from it, which is enough to make planning around a single loop unwise.

Sources

Every figure and date on this page comes from one of these. If something here disagrees with GOV.UK, GOV.UK is right and we have not caught up yet.

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