RAC Foundation

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

History

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

Organisation

The Foundation has a board of six trustees and a Public Policy Committee with fourteen members. Neville Jackson serves as chair of both the Trustee Board and the Public Policy Committee.^[4]

Day-to-day operations are managed by the director, currently Steve Gooding, who took up the post in May 2015.^[5]

Work

The Foundation's research focuses on four main areas: economics, environment, mobility and safety. It publishes research on the RAC Foundation website, including interactive and automatically updated data charts on topics such as fuel prices and the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles.

The Foundation conducts its own research and also commissions subject-matter experts to examine key aspects of transport policy.^[6] It regularly intervenes in the media.^[7]

In 2010 and 2011, the Foundation was among the primary sponsors of the RAC Brighton to London Future Car Challenge Archived 28 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine. The Foundation analysed data collected from the low-carbon vehicles that participated in the event and published its conclusions in Shades of Green (2010)^[8] and The Green Charge (2011).^[9]

In 2017, the Foundation contributed to Gergely Raccuja's winning submission for the Wolfson Economics Prize. Miles Better examined the potential for a distance-based insurance charge to replace fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) as revenue falls with the greening of the vehicle fleet.

In June 2018, it was announced that the Foundation would receive £480,000 in funding from the Department for Transport to support its Road Collision Investigation Project, which aims to trial "an innovative new approach to road casualty investigation, looking more closely at what is really causing road collisions."^[10]

Reports

Key publications and research include:

• Roads and Reality^[11]
• The Car in British Society^[12]
• Governing and Paying for England’s Roads^[13]
• Keeping the Nation Moving^[14]
• Fuel for Thought, the What, Why and How of Motoring Taxation^[15]
• On the Move: Car and Rail Travel Trends^[16]
• Powering Ahead: Future of Low-Carbon Cars and Fuels^[17]
• Ploughing On - Winter Resilience Review^[18]
• The Car and the Commute^[19]
• Graduated Driver Licensing - Mapping the Cost of Young Driver Accidents^[20]
• Saving Lives by Lowering Legal Drink-Drive Limit^[21]
• Effectiveness of Average Speed Cameras^[22]
• Air Quality and Road Transport^[23]
• Diesel Scrappage - Could it Work?^[24]
• Towards an Accident Investigation Branch for Roads^[25]
• New car mileage - analysis of MOT data^[26]