pvrm

Description

PVRM stands for /Personalized Vehicle Registration Marks/. This is the Hong Kong government auction system, created in 2006, by which citizens can bid for a particular car plate. Auctions are public and the price of each plate published in a (dirty) PDF file every month.

This package offers a simple query system for people to know whether a plate is available and if not, when it was initially purchased from the government and at what price. The database includes:

• PVRM plates allocated since the first auction held by the government on 16 September 2006.
• PVRM plates auctioned during the annual lunar year auctions.

Please note that TVRM plates are not included in this set.

Important notes

Return format:

{ plate: '<string>',      // the plate found (force UPPERCASE)
  auctionDate: '<date>',  // in ISO-8601 format (standard JSON date)
  value: <value>,         // in Hong Kong dollars
 }

The module cleans up the argument to match qualifying PVRM criteria. In particular:

• All 'O' and 'I' letters are replaced by '0' and '1' digits, respectively
• Spaces are removed (plates that differ only by spaces are not allowed)

The auctionDate has its hour arbitrarily set to 9:25am Hong Kong time, which is the usual auction time.

If the plate is not found, the auction date will be set to undefined and Value set to zero.

The module will throw an error if:

• the requested plate, even after clean-up, is more than 8 characters
• the requested plate contains illegal characters (eg, 'Q' letter, diacritics, etc.)

Please note that due to the uneven frequency of auctions, it is essential to keep the package regularly updated.

I am doing my best to keep the module updated as fast as possible after auctions. Don't hesitate to contact me if you detect errors.

Install

npm install pvrm

Detailed usage and examples

const pvrm = require('pvrm')

// usage: pvrm( 'plate' )

pvrm( 'I LOVE U' )
// { plate:'1L0VEU', auctionDate:'2016-09-16T02:25:00.000Z', value:1400000 }

pvrm( '' )
//