Miami-Dade County Commission awarded AnsaldoBreda a $US 313m contract in November 2012 to supply 136 metro cars to replace the existing fleet of Budd cars, which were built in 1983.

All of the cars will be assembled at Hitachi’s 13,000m2 plant at Medley, which was inaugurated in March. The first vehicles will enter service at the end of 2017 and production is due to be completed in the first half of 2019.

The new cars are equipped with free passenger Wi-Fi, bicycle racks, and digital passenger information systems.