Matthew Mitchell wrote:Yes. In fact, that's how it's done--the transfer is punched up as a fare receipt (for the proper zone fare paid) and is good for travel on the next car.
Yep, even in the good old Red Arrow days you had to switch cars. There's no other way to handle overlaps. The practice Matt described has been in use for as long as I can remember.
The only somewhat irrational aspect to this system is that if you have a CTD Transpass and want to go from, say Penfield to Norristown, the car change at Bryn Mawr means your trip consists of 2 separate one-zone boardings. Each leg is covered by the pass even though the full trip is across 2 zones. But if you're taking a shorter trip from 69th St. to Rosemont with no car change, that counts a two-zone ride and Transpass holders have to pay an extra 50 cents.
The situation doesn't affect many riders, and it's basically no different from taking a bus and switching to the subway in the city when using a pass, but it's still a bit counterintuitive.