In a unanimous vote, the Nassau County Legislature approved a contract with Veolia Transportation to manage the county's bus and paratransit system under a new public-private operating partnership to launch in January.

The Nassau County transit system transports 31 million bus passengers and 280,000 paratransit passengers each year and has been managed by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority since 1973.

The value of the contract is $106 million annually and makes Veolia Transportation the service provider of four of the top five largest transit contracts in the U.S., including Nassau County, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and New Orleans. Veolia Transportation won the five-year contract with a five-year renewal option as part of an extensive procurement process managed by Nassau County that began early in 2011. The system has recently been re-named Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE).

This contract is an example of a new kind of public-private operating partnership pioneered in several U.S. cities by Veolia. The county retains ownership of buses, equipment, facilities and other infrastructure, plus control over fares and service levels, while Veolia manages and operates all aspects of the transit system on the county's behalf.