Authorities of the country's first-ever elevated metro rail, expected to be inaugurated in the last week of December, will initially operate ten trains for 16 hours a day between Diabari and Agargaon.
“The trains will be available every 10 minutes, but the arrangement will change once the demand rises,” MAN Siddique, managing director of Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd (DMTCL), said on Monday.
He said the service would initially be available to a limited number of passengers. Full-fledged operation will be possible within two or three months of its inception.
The DMTCL MD said this while briefing journalists at the Metrorail Exhibition Information Centre (MEIC) in Dhaka following a press tour jointly organized by Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) and the MEIC to apprise journalists of the latest updates on the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Line-6.
Siddique said trains were now operating a system or service trial, and blank operation (moving without passengers) would start on December 18.
He said the DMTCL was capable of operating trains every 3.5 minutes, but the trains would be delayed so that the passengers had enough time to get used to the fast pace of the service.
"A total of 12 trains are ready for operation, but initially, 10 trains having six coaches each will run. The remaining two will be on standby to ensure an uninterrupted metro rail service in case of any problem or technical glitch," Siddique said.
He added that all 24 trains would be operational when the entire route from Uttara to Kamalapur was complete.
"We have completed all sorts of construction work, and now the last preparations are going on in full swing. We expect to launch the metro rail service by the last week of this month as per the prime minister's schedule," Siddique said.
Chief Representative of Jica in Bangladesh Ichiguchi Tomohide also spoke on the occasion, while Project Director of MRT Line-6 Md Aftabuddin Talukder was present at the program, among others.
Noting that the metro rail service will be launched up to Motijheel by December 2023 and Kamalapur by June 2025, Siddique said a train from Uttara north station would reach Agargaon station within 20 minutes, while it would take only 40 minutes to reach Kamalapur station once the service is in full operation.
Ichiguchi Tomohide said launching the Uttara to Agargaon section this year was a great achievement on the golden jubilee of the relationship between Bangladesh and Japan.
He hoped that the service would play a pivotal role in reducing traffic congestion and environmental pollution on a greater scale in the capital city, and would provide safe travel for the women.
Later, the journalists were taken to the Uttara north station, where the officials concerned showed and briefed them on the process of riding on a metro rail.
Earlier, at the outset of the program, two documentaries were screened on the metro rail project and how to ride on the train and behave in the station area.
