A few hundred Triangle drivers will be recruited next year to road test a satellite technology system that might be used one day to replace the gas tax with a tax on every mile we drive.

The $16.5 million Road User Charge Study will enlist 2,700 drivers in six states to determine whether Americans would accept the idea of paying by the mile, instead of by the gallon.

The 21st Century Transportation Committee, a statewide advisory panel, was briefed Wednesday on the mileage tax study and on new technology that will make it easier in coming years to collect highway tolls. The committee is looking for new ways to pay for North Carolina's road and transit needs.

"In the future, all of your roads are going to be funded by tolling or vehicle mile taxes," said Matthew B. Click, a Florida state turnpike official. "Roads are a transportation utility. They are no different from water or sewer or anything else."

Former state Rep. George Miller of Durham, a committee member, said he worried that drivers would find it hard to change their habits.

"I like my car," Miller said. "I like driving where I want to go."

The University of Iowa Public Policy Center is expected to start recruiting 450 Triangle drivers for the mileage study in early 2008. The schedule has not been announced.

Kevin Leibel of Chapel Hill-based Innovation Management, which will oversee the study in the Triangle, said volunteers' cars will be fitted with GPS and computer hardware to track the miles they travel through each state and local government jurisdiction.

Each month, they will receive make-believe bills showing what federal, state and local taxes they would owe if they were taxed by the mile.