Metro rail to run past 10pm every night

The metro rail will carry passengers past 10:00 pm every night following a two-week trial run, the operating company has said.

The services will start half-an-hour early every morning and close half-an-hour later to maximum 10:45pm.

The interval between the arrival of two trains at any given station has also been reduced by 2 minutes from 6 minutes to minimum 4.15 minutes in the "pick hours." In “off-pick hours”, the intervening period will also be reduced by 2 minutes.

Faruque Ahmed, managing director at Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL), told reporters that the new schedule would help expand the utilisation of existing capacity.

Workforce shortage had prevented the expansion of services until now, he said, adding the new schedule will come into force soon.

As per the upcoming schedule, the day’s first train will leave the Motijheel station at 7am instead of 7:30am. The last train will leave the same station at 10:10 pm and reach Uttara Uttar station at 10:45pm. Now, the last train reaches the Uttara Uttar station a few minutes after 10:00 pm.

Furthermore, the train services will commence at 2:30 pm every Friday, instead of 3:00 pm.