Protecting the rails: Congress, DHS turn their attention to guarding ground transportation.

No one should be surprised if terrorists strike a passenger rail system on U.S. soil.

Industry and government officials have stopped short of saying "it's not a matter of if, but when." But they caution that all the signs are there.

Since 9/11, small terrorist cells using relatively low-cost, simple-to-manufacture explosives have struck, London, Madrid and Mumbai, India.

"We can see this coming," said William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association at the Railway Security Forum and Expo.

Millar, and other industry representatives, have criticized the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation for not adequately funding efforts to protect the approximately 33 million passengers who board surface public transportation every weekday. About 2 million use commercial aviation, yet that industry has received $24 billion since 9/11, Millar said. Rail security funding has amounted to $386 million.

"We don't think it's right. We don't think it's fair. We don't think it's sensible," Millar said.

More federal leadership on the issue is forthcoming, a congressional staffer said.

In the wake of 9/11, upgrading aviation security received justifiable attention. Last year, maritime security was addressed in the SAFE Port Act. Now, there is consensus in Congress that 2007 will be surface transportation's turn, said Stephan Gardner, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee's Democratic staff

The Surface Transportation Security Improvement Act was introduced Jan. 5. A similar bill stalled last year. It had support in the Senate, but not the House. That will change this year with Democrats in control of both chambers, Gardner predicted.

The act addresses everything from intercity buses, freight trains and trucking. However, passenger trains are of most concern. Since 9/11, one-third of terrorist attacks worldwide have targeted commuter trains, Millar said.

But what can be done to protect passengers in a fast-paced "open system?" Train and subway stations are unlike airports where access is tightly controlled and everyone is screened. Are there technologies that can help root out potential attackers? Are the solutions low-tech or no-tech?

Millar is the Transportation Security Administration's most vocal critic. Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley's assertion before a Senate hearing that funding for rail security is adequate was "flat out wrong," he insisted. Millar doesn't begrudge the aviation industry for the overwhelming amount of resources the federal government has doled out since 9/11. But the federal government's message has been that public transportation systems, all locally operated with the exception of Amtrak, are largely on their own, he said.

DHS officials would disagree. The department announced transit security grants totaling $171.8 million this year. The bulk of the funds will go to the New York-Connecticut-New Jersey region at $61 million, the national capital region at $18.2 million, Boston at $15.3 million. San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Atlanta will receive smaller amounts. Amtrak will receive $8 million. Inner-city buses can apply for $11 million.

Assistance also comes from the Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration, which supplies training materials. Other state homeland security grant programs can be used to upgrade rail security, DHS officials have pointed out.

Millar said these are paltry amounts. The federal government should chip in $6 billion over the next three to 10 years to help bolster public transportation security, he said.

If Congress does come up with the money, questions remain on where the money should go. Training employees to spot potential bombers, and awareness campaigns for the public, do not require expensive cutting-edge technologies.

Every day, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority sets up random bag checks in four stations, said Lewis Best, intelligence unit commander for the MBTA transit police. The stations where the four-officer teams conduct the searches are random. Swabs are taken of bag handles and zippers, and inserted into an explosive trace detector, which is a relatively mature technology.

Two recent federal court cases have paved the way for such random searches, Best pointed out. Civil liberties groups challenged the searches, but the courts allowed them to proceed with certain restrictions. The public must be informed of the searches in advance. They must take place outside the turnstile, and passengers can refuse the inspection and walk away as long as they do not try to reenter the station. A predetermined number--every tenth customer for example--has his bag checked to avoid accusations of racial profiling.

The idea is to create uncertainty in the minds of potential attackers.

"We can't lock [public transportation systems] down, but we can shake them up," Best said.

Tom Farmer, a TSA official in the office of mass transit security, said such strategies "get into an adversary's head."

Randomly flooding security teams into a system creates uncertainty on the part of terrorists who may be planning attacks. New York has used such strategies. Highly visible assets like K-9 teams or closed circuit television cameras make planners wonder what they're not seeing.

"The public is a tremendous force multiplier," Farmer said. Awareness campaigns such as "If you see something--Say Something" can help focus passengers' eyes on suspicious behavior or packages.

Other low-tech solutions available to transit systems include blast-resistant trashcans on platforms and making the top of ticket dispensers domed instead of square to prevent a bomber from hiding a device on top.

The Washington Area Metro Transit Authority's Crystal City station, used by thousands of defense contractors and military personnel each day, and only a few hundred feet from the railway security conference, had square-top ticket dispensers, not domed.

Security measures such as these are relatively low-cost and low-tech. Public transportation systems run on tight budgets, though. Taking employees out of their jobs for security training is a burden. An orange terror alert costs the nation's public transportation systems an additional $900,000 per day, according to American Public Transportation Association figures.

Outfitting every subway station entrance with expensive monitors would be prohibitively expensive, so security officials are looking to the federal government for guidance on what kind of technologies to buy with their limited funding.

"I get calls every week from vendors trying to sell us something," said Gary Gee, chief of police for the [San Francisco] Bay Area Transit Authority. He wants the federal government to set up a technology clearinghouse where local authorities can go to find out if devices truly work. Transit officials simply don't have the expertise to verify technology company claims, he said.

After every high-profile terrorist attack on a commuter train, "snake oil salesmen" come out of the woodwork to sell public transportation systems high-tech devices, Millar said.

Unlike the aviation and maritime security sectors, surface transportation has not received any federal evaluations of new security devices.

That will change beginning this year, vowed Bob Pryor, domain manager for surface transportation at TSA. He will be the point man for sorting out new technologies in the newly created position.

Since his appointment last year, DHS assistant secretary Jay Cohen has also reorganized his science and technology directorate. He is among those who believe there is a high probability of a terrorist attack similar to the Madrid, London and Mumbai bombings, and is placing a renewed emphasis on detecting improvised explosive devices.

The federal government cannot endorse one vendor over another, but it can set standards, and give a simple "yes or no" on whether a technology meets a benchmark. That includes field-testing items in real-world scenarios, Pryor said.

"As far as I'm concerned everything is junk until we put it in the field," he added.

The first batch of products will be tested by June and the results posted on the homeland security information network, a database available to law enforcement and rail security officials, he said.

While keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior is important, there are technologies in development that can assist, he said.

"We believe the wave of the future is remote detection," Pryor said.

The directorate and TSA are evaluating other products that use passive and active millimeter wave sensors to highlight bombs and guns hidden underneath clothing. Backscatter x-ray, infrared and thermal imagers are other technologies being explored.

These can be combined with dosed-circuit cameras to fuse images, he said.

Several companies are marketing software programs that use high-resolution cameras to automatically scan areas for such items as abandoned packages or trespassers. When a computer spots an anomaly, it can send a warning to an operator.

Cohen also created a human factors division in the directorate. Some of the new division's work will explore how operators interact with screening technology. However, sensors that can automatically detect odd behavior and hostile intent are also on his plate.

"It is good to look at the human component," Pryor said. "We have to get better at finding the bomb maker. But I'm not sure we'll ever get to find them 100 percent," Pryor said.

With such high numbers of passengers, spotting a terrorist will also be difficult. "A suicide bomber is a very facile weapon," he added.

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