RAC Foundation

The RAC Foundation (Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring) is a British pro-motoring think tank^[1] and registered charity.

History

It was established as the research arm of RAC Motoring Services Ltd in 1991, when Motoring Services was owned by the Royal Automobile Club. In 1999, when Motoring Services was sold by the club, the foundation became an independent organisation and received a legacy from the members of the Royal Automobile, it later gained charitable status.^[2][3]

Organisation

The foundation has a board of six trustees including Neville Jackson, who sits as its chair.^[2]

The Public Policy Committee, also chaired by Neville Jackson, is an advisory body consisting of approximately a dozen members with relevant transport experience and interests, mainly drawn from academia, politics and business. The committee is consulted about research, strategy, major campaigns, and future policy.

The current director is Steve Gooding CB who took up the post in May 2015.^[4]

Day-to-day activity is managed by the director and various permanent staff.

Work

The foundation's research falls into four main categories: economics, environment, mobility and safety. All of the research is available on the RAC Foundation website including interactive and automatically updated data charts relating to topics such as fuel prices and the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles.

Some research is carried out in-house. The foundation also commissions experts in their field to investigate key areas of transport policy.

In 2010 and 2011 the foundation was one of the sponsors of the RAC Brighton to London Future Car Challenge. The foundation analysed the data collected from the low-carbon cars that completed the run and published its conclusions in Shades of Green (2010)^[5] and The Green Charge (2011).^[6]

In 2017 the foundation contributed to Gergely Raccuja's winning entry in the Wolfson Economics Prize. The work - Miles Better - explored how a distance-based charge collected by insurers might eventually replace fuel duty and VED as revenue falls with the greening of the vehicle fleet.

In June 2018 it was announced that the RAC Foundation was to receive £480,000 of funding from the Department for Transport to support its Road Collision Investigation Project with the aim of trialling "an innovative new approach to road casualty investigation, looking more closely at what is really causing road collisions."

Reports

Key publications and research include:

• Roads and Reality^[7]
• The Car in British Society^[8]
• Governing and Paying for England’s Roads^[9]
• Keeping the Nation Moving^[10]
• Fuel for Thought, the What, Why and How of Motoring Taxation^[11]
• On the Move: Car and Rail Travel Trends^[12]
• Powering Ahead: Future of Low-Carbon Cars and Fuels^[13]
• Ploughing On - Winter Resilience Review^[14]
• The Car and the Commute^[15]
• Graduated Driver Licensing - Mapping the Cost of Young Driver Accidents^[16]
• Saving Lives by Lowering Legal Drink-Drive Limit^[17]
• Effectiveness of Average Speed Cameras^[18]
• Air Quality and Road Transport^[19]
• Diesel Scrappage - Could it Work?^[20]
• Towards an Accident Investigation Branch for Roads^[21]
• New car mileage - analysis of MOT data^[22]