(a)    This section does not apply to service rendered or commodities furnished:

(1)    to the officers, employees, pensioners, and immediate family members of the officers, employees, and pensioners of a public service company;

(2)    to the United States, the State, or a local government;

(3)    to provide relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence, flood, or other similar calamity;

(4)    in the case of common carriers, to transport:

(i)    personnel of another common carrier that reciprocates for personnel of the transporting common carrier;

(ii)    hospital patients;

(iii)    indigent, destitute, and homeless individuals;

(iv)    persons exclusively engaged in charitable work;

(v)    residents of federal or State veterans homes, including those about to enter a home or those returning from a home;

(vi)    railway mail service employees and baggage agents;

(vii)    post office, customs, and immigration inspectors;

(viii)    newspaper vendors;

(ix)    property for exhibition carried to or from fairs and expositions;

(x)    employees of sleeping car companies, express companies, telegraph companies, and telephone companies doing business along the line of the common carrier;

(xi)    persons and property incident to or connected with contracts for construction, operation, or maintenance of the plant of the transportation company, to the extent provided in the contracts;

(xii)    individuals injured in accidents and physicians, nurses, or other necessary caretakers attending the injured individuals in transit;

(xiii)    children under the age of 5 years for no charge;

(xiv)    children under 12 years for half fare; or

(xv)    persons at free or reduced rates that are otherwise authorized by law;

(5)    in the case of common carriers, for the issuance of mileage, excursion, or commuter tickets;

(6)    to free steamboat excursion transportation from May through August of each year, from Baltimore City to any place in the State, in exchange for services rendered in advertising the excursion business;

(7)    to obtain essential data by a method that uses a limited sample of customers, in connection with a rate structure study conducted under formal proceedings before the Commission; or

(8)    to telephone lifeline service provided to eligible subscribers under § 8-201 of this article.

(b)    For any service rendered or commodity furnished, a public service company may not directly or indirectly, by any means, including special rates, rebates, drawbacks, or refunds:

(1)    charge, demand, or receive from a person compensation that is greater or less than from any other person under substantially similar circumstances;

(2)    extend a privilege or facility to a person, except those privileges and facilities that are extended uniformly to all persons under substantially similar circumstances;

(3)    discriminate against a person, locality, or particular class of service; or

(4)    give undue or unreasonable preference to or cause undue or unreasonable prejudice to a person, locality, or particular class of service.