The Metro Railway has shifted the time of the last trains from New Garia and Dum Dum stations to 11pm from Friday.

According to the earlier schedule, the last trains would leave the stations at 9.40pm. The 11pm train will be available from Monday to Friday.

The Dakshineswar-Dum Dum section won’t be affected by this. The time of the last train from Dakshineswar will remain unchanged at 9.28pm.

One ticket counter at each station on the route will remain open to issue tokens.

The move comes within weeks of Calcutta High Court asking the Metro Railway to “consider” a petition that sought a direction to the carrier to extend the timings of the last trains on this north-south corridor.

Officials of Metro Railway, however, insisted that the decision to run an extra pair of trains was not in response to the high court’s direction.

A senior official called it an “experimental” move.

Commuters remarked that instead of running an extra train after a gap of one hour and twenty minutes from the previous train, Metro Railway could have run more trains till 11pm.

“The train before the 11pm train will leave the terminal stations 9.40pm. Will someone reaching the stations at 9.45pm wait for a train at 11pm? I do not think so,” said Ajay Mittal, a commuter.

“How many passengers will be there at 11 pm? There would have been many more passengers if a train left the two stations at 10pm or 10.15pm or 10.30pm. They may use the passenger figures by running trains at 11pm to show that there is not enough demand for services after 9.40pm,” said Mittal.

The 11pm New Garia bound -train that ran on Friday had a few passengers, said a woman commuter.

“We are going to run special Metro services on Blue Line (New Garia- Dum Dum) on an experimental basis from Friday. These services on both up and down directions will leave Kavi Subhash (New Garia) and Dum Dum stations at 11pm from Monday to Friday,” said the Metro official.

Earlier this month, the high court heard a petition seeking an extension of Metro services to benefit commuters.

“We are not here to tell you how to run trains. We will just direct you to consider their request. We are conscious of the fact that the decision to fix the timing of the train fully rests with the rail authorities and this court does not have the expertise to go into the technical aspects,” the bench of Chief Justice T.S. Sivagnanam and Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya said in open court.

The Delhi Metro website says: “Metro services are generally available from 6am to 11pm”. In Chennai and Bangalore, Metro services are available from 5am to 11pm, according to their websites.