N.Y. Transportation Law § 103: Transportation prohibited until publication of schedules; rates as fixed to be charged; passes prohibited

§ 103. Transportation prohibited until publication of schedules; rates

as fixed to be charged; passes prohibited. 1. No common carrier subject

to the provisions of this chapter shall engage or participate in the

transportation of passengers or property, between points within the

state, until its schedules of rates, fares and charges shall have been

filed and published in accordance with the provisions of this chapter.

No common carrier shall charge, demand, collect or receive a greater or

less or different compensation for transportation of passengers or

property, or for any service in connection therewith, than the rates,

fares and charges applicable to such transportation as specified in its

schedules filed and in effect at the time; nor shall any such carrier

refund or remit in any manner or by any device any portion of the rates,

fares, or charges so specified, nor extend to any shipper or person any

privileges or facilities in the transportation of passengers or property

except such as are regularly and uniformly extended to all persons and

corporations under like circumstances.

2. No common carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter shall,

directly or indirectly, issue or give any free ticket, free pass or free

transportation for passengers or property between points within this

state, except to its officers, employees, agents, surgeons, physicians,

attorneys-at-law, and their families; to ministers of religion, officers

and employees of railroad young men's christian associations,

incarcerated individuals of hospitals, charitable and eleemosynary

institutions and persons exclusively engaged in charitable and

eleemosynary work; and to indigent, destitute and homeless persons and

to such persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals,

and the necessary agents employed in such transportation; to

incarcerated individuals of the national homes or state homes for

disabled volunteer soldiers and of soldiers' and sailors' homes,

including those about to enter and those returning home after discharge,

and boards of managers of such homes; to necessary caretakers of

property in transit; to employees of sleeping-car companies, express

companies, telegraph and telephone companies doing business along the

line of the issuing carrier; to railway mail service employees,

post-office inspectors, mail carriers in uniform, customs inspectors and

immigration inspectors; to newspaper carriers on trains, baggage agents,

witnesses attending any legal investigation or proceeding in which the

common carrier is interested, persons injured in accidents or wrecks and

physicians and nurses attending such persons; to the carriage free or at

reduced rates of persons or property for the United States, state or

municipal governments, or of property to or from fairs and expositions

for exhibit thereat.

3. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prohibit the

interchange of free or reduced transportation between common carriers of

or for their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, surgeons, and their

families, and their household and personal effects nor to prohibit any

common carrier from carrying passengers or property free, with the

object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence or

other calamitous visitation; not to prohibit any common carrier from

transporting persons or property as incident to or connected with

contracts for construction, operation or maintenance, and to the extent

only that such free transportation is provided for in the contract for

such work, nor to prevent any common carrier from transporting children

under five years of age free. Provided further, that nothing in this

chapter shall prevent the issuance of mileage, excursion, school or

family commutation, commutation passenger tickets, half fare tickets for

the transportation of children under twelve years of age, any form of

reduced rate passenger tickets for persons attending schools or

educational institutions pursuant to title two of the "Servicemen's

Readjustment Act of 1944," or any other form of reduced rate passenger

tickets, or joint interchangeable mileage tickets, with special

privileges as to the amount of free baggage that may be carried under

mileage tickets of one thousand miles or more. But before any common

carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter shall issue any such

mileage, excursion, school or family commutation, commutation, half

fare, or any other form of reduced rate passenger tickets, or joint

interchangeable mileage ticket, with special privileges as aforesaid, it

shall file with the commissioner copies of the tariffs of rates, fares

or charges on which such tickets are to be based, together with the

specifications of the amount of free baggage permitted to be carried

under such joint interchangeable mileage ticket, in the same manner as

common carriers are required to do with regard to other rates by this

chapter. Nor shall anything in this chapter prevent the issuance of

passenger transportation in exchange for advertising space in newspapers

at full rates. The term "employees" as used in subdivisions two and

three, when referring to employees of a common carrier, shall include

furloughed, pensioned and superannuated employees, persons who have

become disabled or infirm in the service of any such common carrier, and

the remains of a person killed in the employment of a carrier and

ex-employees traveling for the purpose of entering the service of any

such common carrier; and the term "families" as used in such

subdivisions shall include the families of those persons named in this

proviso, also the families of persons killed, and the unremarried widow

or widower and minor children during minority of persons who died, while

in the service of such common carrier.

4. Nothing in this section or in any other provision of law shall

limit the power of the commissioner to require the sale of, and upon

investigation prescribe reasonable and just fares as the maximum to be

charged for, commutation, school or family commutation, mileage tickets

over railroads or street railroads, joint interchangeable mileage

tickets, round trip excursion tickets, or any other form of reduced rate

passenger tickets over such railroads or street railroads, including

cummutation, mileage, school tickets or any form of reduced rate tickets

issued to persons attending schools or educational institutions pursuant

to title two of the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944"; provided

that all special round trip excursion tickets, the sale of which is

limited to less than thirty days, except round trip excursion tickets to

the state fair and return during the holding thereof, shall be deemed

exempt from such regulation by the commissioner.