RAC Foundation

The RAC Foundation (The Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring) is a registered charity.

It is a transport policy and research organisation that explores the economic, mobility, safety and environmental issues relating to roads and their users. It publishes independent and authoritative research with which it promotes informed debate and advocates policy in the interests of the responsible motorist.

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. It later gained charitable status.

The Foundation was formed in 1991.

It became independent of RAC Motoring Services in 1999 and received a legacy from the members of the Royal Automobile who had sold RAC Motoring Services. It subsequently became a charity.

The current director is Steve Gooding CB who took up the post in May 2015 , taking over from Professor Stephen Glaister CBE who was in the role since April 2008 and upon leaving took up a non-executive directorship at the Office of Rail and Road.

Steve Gooding had previously been Director General of Roads, Traffic and Local Group at the Department for Transport and led the work that resulted in the transformation of the Highways Agency into Highways England. He started with the Civil Service in 1983 and moved into the central transport department in 1988 where he worked until joining the Foundation except for periods spent in the Cabinet Office, the Government Office for London and the Office of the Rail Regulator.

The Foundation's first director was Edmund King (campaigner). He later left to become president of the Automobile Association.

The first chairman of the Foundation was Sir Christopher Foster (economist) MA (Cantab), an academic at the University of Oxford and MIT, a Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a consultant at Coopers & Lybrand, and then PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a temporary civil servant. He was a special adviser to Barbara Castle, Dick Marsh, Tony Crosland and Peter Shore.

Sir Christopher was followed in 2003 by David Holmes CB who was formerly Director of Government and Industry Affairs at British Airways and prior to that held several senior positions in the Department for Transport, including Deputy Secretary with responsibility for roads and traffic.

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