Fairfax Connector is a public bus service provided by Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, and is managed by the county government. The bus system provides service within Fairfax County, and connects to Metrobus, Metrorail stations, Virginia Railway Express, and other local bus systems. Fairfax Connector serves all of Fairfax Metrorail Stations, the city of Alexandria, the city of Fairfax (weekday middays only), the Washington Dulles International Airport, and the Pentagon Metrorail station (weekdays only, mostly during morning and evening peak periods). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . Fairfax Connector, or simply "The Connector", is operated under contract by Transdev, and is the third largest bus fleet in the D.C. area. The Connector provides a fixed-route bus service within Fairfax County on 93 routes and carries about nine million passengers annually. The Connector's goals is to supplement the regional rail and bus service provided by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), providing reliable local bus service, and to improves the safety of the community of Fairfax County. History 1980s The first buses rolled out in September 1985 as a lower-cost alternative to the Metrobus service of the regional Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The original routes connected the southern part of the county (near the Mount Vernon Estate) to the Huntington Metro station which borders Alexandria. This area continues to be the core of the system, and is noted for the number of residents in the Richmond Highway area who use the service at all times of the day. It had 10 routes, and many routes serves through Huntington Station. These first 10 routes were previously served by Metrobus. In 1988, The Connector began to operate express routes, to connect to Pentagon station. It also expanded through the southeastern portion of Fairfax. 1990s In 1990, The Connector took over the operation of the RIBS (Reston Internal Bus Service). Service continues to provide through the southern portion of Alexandria, when Van Dorn Street station opened in 1991. In 1994, the service was extended to the high-technology industrial areas of suburban Reston and Herndon, located between Washington, D.C. and Washington Dulles International Airport. Along State Route 267 (the Dulles Toll Road), express buses carry commuters from free park-and-ride lots to the Washington Metro system. In 1999, the Herndon-Monroe Park & Ride and the Tysons Westpark Transit Station opened, extending its operation within