PRTC is a suburban public transportation agency located 25 miles south of Washington, DC. The commuter buses is selling were used almost exclusively on the Metro Direct and OmniRide services. OmniRide commuter buses serve customers (who are largely working professionals with high expectations for vehicle quality) on weekdays along the I-95 and I-66 freeway corridors with destinations including the Pentagon, Crystal City, downtown Washington, Capitol Hill and the Washington Navy Yard. Three Metro Direct routes provide weekday connections to and from nearby Metrorail stations. In 2011, PRTC carried 3.4 million passengers with an average daily ridership of 9,568 including its local service. PRTC's MCI buses are used for commuter express service in suburban and urban areas with highway travel in between. Commuter vehicles are in service on average about 10 hours per day of which close to half is spent deadheading (i.e., not carrying passengers). Since July 2003, these buses have been maintained by First Transit as an integral part of their bus operations contract with PRTC. First Transit is an ASE Blue Seal shop - every technician has at least one ASE certification and at least 30 percent are Master Technicians. First Transt maintains a buses-per-technician ratio of no more than 8:1 and provides preventive maintenance inspections (PMIs) every 6,000 miles. PRTC retains an independent firm (Transit Resource Center - TRC) that conducts maintenance audits three times per year of 1/3 of the fleet, chosen at random. The audits are comprehensive, examining 18 functional areas of the vehicle and noting any defects found. Based on TRC's findings, First Transit does a superior job maintaining the fleet, averaging only 4.2 defects per bus fleet-wide since February 2004.