Think tank calls for pay as you drive charging This would see them being charged up to seven pence a mile to use local roads, with the price varying according to the time of day. In return volunteers would get a discount of up to £150 on their tax disc. If successful other counties could adopt a similar strategy until it is adopted across the country as a whole The second proposal would see the introduction of privately-run tolled motorways, with charges of up to six pence a mile. At the same time the level of fuel duty would be cut to leave drivers no worse. An alternative strategy would be to allow private companies to build express lanes alongside existing motorways. They could be made more attractive by having a higher speed limit than the adjacent state-owned lanes. If just 20% of drivers opted to use these, it would have a substantial impact on congestion. Many customers would be prepared to obtain quicker travel by paying more to drive on commercially provided roads. The IEA believes its proposals could stimulate the investment in road building which it believes is needed to tackle the gridlock costing the country £20 billion a year. "Rather than taxing motorists so heavily, we should encourage moves to a pay-as-you-go system of pricing.," said Mark Littlewood, Director General at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Imagine if, instead of paying directly for each purchase, we all paid for annual season tickets to our local supermarket and could then just help ourselves to whatever we wanted. The result would be gross inefficiency and even chaos. To keep our traffic flowing and to encourage the appropriate expansion of our transport network, we need road pricing to begin to replace upfront, one off taxes.