Privacy Policy

The Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission is a transportation agency focusing on transportation planning and operating initiatives with its bus, rail and ridematching services, as well as transportation planning studies, capital project management, policy analysis, and regional coordination. For more information about PRTC, use the about button.

This privacy policy applies to the operations of all services within the PRTC website.

Overall Privacy Statement

PRTC takes your privacy seriously. Because we gather certain types of information about our users we want to help you understand the terms and conditions surrounding the collection and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses the types of information we gather, how we use it, and how to correct or change it. These privacy practices apply to the Web site that you were viewing when you clicked through to this policy, which is operated by PRTC.

1. What personally identifiable information does PRTC collect?

PRTC's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with the best and most useful content and services.

PRTC collects personally identifiable information when you provide it to us, such as when you register on our site, when you subscribe for an e-mail newsletter, when you use certain services, such as the TripFinder, and when you visit PRTC web pages. Several of the services that we offer on our sites, such as myPRTC, may require registration as a condition of use. Once you register with our site you are no longer anonymous to us. PRTC may also receive information about you from other sources and add it to the information you have provided to us.

2. What anonymous information does PRTC collect?

Cookies
Your Internet browser has a feature called "cookies" which store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of our sites. However, cookies tell us nothing about who you are unless you specifically give us personally identifiable information. You do not need to have cookies turned on to visit the PRTC site, although active participation in certain areas of our site may require cookies. In addition, you may elect not to allow cookies to be collected by selecting certain options on your browser.

Web Server Logs
PRTC automatically receives and records information from our servers and from your browser, including your IP address, the time, and information about the page you requested. This allows us to track general user traffic patterns.

We use tracking technologies in a variety of ways, including:

• keeping count of return visits to our site
• accumulating and reporting anonymous, aggregate (data collected in mass), statistical information on Web site usage
• determining which features users like best
• saving your password so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our site

3. How does PRTC use the information?

PRTC uses the information we gather for three general purposes:

• to customize the content you see
  
• to enhance the user experience in our site. We use tracking information to determine how well each page performs overall based on aggregate user demographics and traffic patterns to those pages. This helps us continue to build a better service for you and to ensure that this website content is relevant and useful
  
• to fulfill your requests for certain products and services, such as sending out electronic newsletters and enabling users to participate in surveys
  

4. How does PRTC share the information?

Personally identifiable information
PRTC will make your personally identifiable information available to other companies or people when:

• we have your consent to share the information
  
• we have engaged companies to work with or on behalf of PRTC to provide a product or service that you have requested, such as opt-in e-mail announcements
  
• you use co-branded services. When you use a co-branded service within our network of sites you grant us permission to pass your registration information back to that service partner. Their use of your information is subject to their applicable privacy policies.
  
• we respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process; or we believe that your actions violate applicable laws or any usage guidelines for specific products or services, or threaten the rights, property, or safety of PRTC, our users, or others

Aggregate Information
PRTC aggregates personally identifiable information and discloses such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to third parties for marketing, promotional, and other purposes. We do not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to identify you personally.

5. What are my options?

Users who would rather not provide any of the user data requested by our registration process do not need to register with us. You can still view much of the content and use many of the services offered by our sites without registering.

We also give users the following options:

• opting not to receive our electronic newsletters when registering. Users who opt-in may remove themselves from mailing lists at any time through the subscription management pages or by following the instructions at the end of the e-mail they received from us;
  
• opting not to provide certain personal information when registering for a site.

6. How can I update my personally identifiable information?

You can correct or change the information collected during registration for any site. The instructions for doing this can be found in our registration area. Users may change this information at any time and as often as necessary. Users who are experiencing problems or who have questions about how our services work can contact us using e-mail addresses at the bottom of this page. Currently, we do not offer users a means by which to completely delete personal information established at the time of registration.

7. How will I know if the privacy policy is changed?

Any modifications to our privacy practices will be reflected first within this area of our web site. If there is a material change in our privacy practices, we will indicate on our sites that our privacy practices have changed and provide a link to the new privacy statement. If we are going to be using the information collected from users in a manner materially different from that stated at the time of collection we will send affected users written notice of the change.

8. Privacy of children

Our site is not directed to children under the age of 13. We operate our network of sites in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and do not permit registration by, and will not knowingly collect or use personally identifiable information from, anyone under 13 years of age. This requirement is clearly posted during the registration process.

Questions, Comments

Questions regarding this privacy statement, or regarding any other aspects of our web site, should be sent via e-mail to or to our corporate offices at 14700 Potomac Mills Road, Woodbridge, VA 22192. We read every message submitted and try to reply promptly to every one. We may also file your comments to improve the site and program, or review and discard the information.

E-mail contact for questions: Omni@omniride.com

Updated April 2002