New Flyers Xcelsior bus (Photo: New Flyer)

WINNIPEG Bus builder New Flyer Industries Inc.  has been awarded a contract valued at $138 million by the New York City Transit Authority.

Under the contract, New Flyer will supply the authority 276 heavy-duty 40-foot Xcelsior clean diesel buses, Winnipeg-based New Flyer announced Monday.

NYCT and MTA Bus Company, collectively known as MTA, comprise the largest transit agency in North America with over 5,700 transit buses in their fleet, of which about 1000 are New Flyer buses.

Over the last three years, New Flyer has delivered 668 transit buses or 758 equivalent units to MTA with both clean-diesel and natural gas propulsion systems in 40- and 60-foot configurations.

We are very proud to have been awarded yet another opportunity to build buses for the NYCT, New Flyer president and CEO Paul Soubry said.

Production of the 276 Xcelsior buses is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2014 with the delivery of four pilot buses. All production buses are to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2015.

New Flyer, with its subsidiary NABI Bus LLC, is the leading manufacturer of heavy-duty transit buses in the United States and Canada, with some 3,000 employees working at manufacturing, fabrication, parts distribution and service centres in both countries.