Boris Johnson is considering watering down the congestion charge scheme in London, a move that may have national implications for road pricing.

The Mayor of London might adopt elements of the scheme planned for Manchester, in which charges apply for only a few hours a day during the busiest periods.

Motoring groups said that by removing the flat-rate charge in London and making the system fairer, the perception of charging would be altered.

Mr Johnson is also looking at scrapping an extension of the £8 charge to West London and making discounts during quieter periods to reduce the pressure on motorists. The amount of time that motorists have to pay the charge, and the methods of doing so, will also be reconsidered.

Kulveer Ranger, the mayor’s director of transport, told The Times that the information gleaned from a review of the western extension would be used to assess the entire system. He said that would include exploring the Manchester model, which will be introduced in 2013.

Under the London scheme, any vehicle that moves inside the zone between 7am and 6pm is charged. The Manchester charge is designed to target people who commute by car, but to spare shoppers driving into the city outside peak hours.

Mr Ranger said: “Flexibility around hours of operation, flexibility around how it is charged; all of those things are options we’re looking to consider.

“The mayor has been absolutely clear that he wants to make it fairer for people, not so much as a blunt tool, but something that’s a bit more well managed and gives people a bit more flexibility in terms of how it's operated. It would be about how you apply it to either the whole, or what would be the impact of applying it to parts.”

Edmund King, president of the AA, told The Times that the London scheme was “fairly blunt” and had discouraged other cities from following suit. “If they moved from this very basic scheme with one-off payments and introduced a slightly more sophisticated scheme, it is likely that other cities would look to London to see if that could be replicated,” he said.

Mr Johnson last week announced a public consultation on the western extension, which was introduced last year by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, despite widespread opposition.

Mr Livingstone was an advocate of a flat charge and was said to be considering extending it into outer London before the mayoral election. Mr Johnson has ruled out further extension.

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