Hong Kong In the
MTR system of
Hong Kong,
Lo Wu and
Lok Ma Chau station of
East Rail line serve as checkpoints for rail passengers between Hong Kong and
mainland China and vice versa. If a passenger travels to/from stations from urban area (on or before
Kowloon Tong), it is possible to save money by splitting the journey into 2 legs. For example, travelling directly from
Hung Hom to Lo Wu costs HK$40.60. If the passenger exits and enters again at
Sheung Shui station, the journey costs HK$36.50 (Hung Hom - Sheung Shui: HK$10.80, Sheung Shui - Lo Wu: $25.70), which is HK$4.10 lower than the direct journey. In the era of
Common stored value tickets, it was possible to travel on the whole network regardless of the fare as long as there was some value on the ticket, which would be recycled when it ran out of value. Therefore, passengers could save fare by keeping tickets with low value (as low as HK$0.10) and use them to travel for long distance journeys.
Sweden The rail operator
SJ had a loophole around 2010, where ticket prices were calculated the shortest way, even if going a detour with a train change. It was possible to book a short distance ticket with an extreme detour and end the journey halfway. This loophole has been tightened.
United Kingdom The
privatisation of British Rail has resulted in a complex fare structure, with passengers regularly mis-sold tickets, or not aware of the full entitlement a ticket gives them. Enthusiasts, and those with connections to the industry, use the
Great Britain railway technical manuals to identify which fares offer best value. This often involves purchasing tickets for stations which one has no intention of actually visiting, for a number of reasons. Since rail journeys in Great Britain are not always priced on mileage, often it is cheaper to buy a ticket from A to D via B and C, solely to travel from B to C (in some cases A = B or C = D). When splitting a journey it is important that the train stops at the location where you transfer from one ticket to another. In the
National Rail network, split ticketing is legal as long as the train calls at the stations where a change of tickets occurs, and, unless on advance tickets or where break of journey is specifically prohibited by restrictions, starting or ending a journey short is also legal. There are many applications that have been developed to carry out split ticketing, for example
Trainline and TrainSplit. These applications search for the lowest combination of tickets for a given journey Item 10 prohibits starting / stopping short: Subject to Condition 8, any passenger using a ticket for any station, either beyond or short of that for which the ticket is valid will be liable to pay the full ordinary single fare for the journey made and he or she may be liable to prosecution. Item 11 prohibits split ticketing: Except where specially authorised, passengers are not permitted to re-book at an intermediate station for the purpose of continuing their journey by the same train. Two or more tickets covering different portions of one journey are not available unless the fares paid for such tickets are equivalent in amount to the price of a single journey ticket between the same points. Any passenger using two or more tickets covering different portions of one journey will be liable to pay the full ordinary single fare for the journey made and he or she may be liable to prosecution. This is in direct contrast of Great Britain, which has specifically stated that such practices are legal in its
National Rail network.
Taiwan Taichung offers its residents a travel card which offers 10 km of free bus travel. Therefore, it is possible to travel in the city for free by alighting just short of the 10 km limit, and changing to another bus at that point.
United States On the
Amtrak system, state-sponsored trains such as the
Pennsylvanian can sometimes carry much lower fares than
Northeast Corridor trains. Travellers between New York and Philadelphia could purchase a ticket from New York to one of the branch line stations on the
Harrisburg branch of the Northeast Corridor, and disembark in Philadelphia leaving the feeder portion of the ticket unused. Although the traveller would travel over the same physical line infrastructure, the cheaper ticket would only be valid on trains that were continuing beyond Philadelphia onto the feeder route, such as the
Keystone Service trains.
BART has several fares where the sum of the fares A–P + P–B is less than the direct fare A–B. The most dramatic is
Fremont to
Dublin/Pleasanton. The direct fare (paid by
Clipper card, effective January 1, 2018 thru December 31, 2019) is $4.95; however if one exits and re-enters at
Bay Fair (where a transfer is required anyway), the fare is $2.00 for each leg, for a total of $4.00. The
Washington Metro sells a 7-day Short Trip Pass good for any trip during peak hours (when fares, effective 2014, can range up to $5.90) up to the maximum off-peak fare of $3.60, clearly under the assumption that it would not be worth people's time to exit and re-board. However, since someone traveling from
West Falls Church to
Eisenhower Avenue would have to transfer at
Rosslyn station, rather than paying the $1.40 fee for the $5.00 peak fare they could exit and re-enter the paid area easily (as Rosslyn is one of 3 Metro stations with on-platform faregates), and have each of the two segments of their journey covered by their pass. == See also ==