T urges passengers to report suspicions

Fearing public complacency, officials from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority are urging riders to report suspicious behavior and unattended bags to authorities to help thwart potential terrorist strikes.

Transit officials plan to hand out pamphlets on public safety at subway stops today during the morning rush. The move is not prompted by any specific security threat but, rather, the sense among safety officers that public vigilance has ebbed recently.

Local reports of unattended and suspicious packages surged after the train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 and after the subway and bus bombings in London on July 7 last year. But with no major attacks of late, MBTA General Manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said he is concerned commuters have grown blasé about terrorism.

''It fluctuates based on what happens in the world," said Grabauskas, referring to the frequency of reports of suspicious activity. ''It's been some time since the London bombings."

Grabauskas will be at the Park Street T stop handing out pamphlets. Orange-vested transit police and officials will be doing the same at nearly every subway stop. Officers with dogs trained to detect bombs will patrol T stops at Government Center, Park Street, Downtown Crossing, North Station, and South Station.

''What we're shooting for is awareness, not anxiety, because there's no general threat that we've been told about," Grabauskas said. ''The eyes and ears of our customers is a key component of our vigilance."

Passengers, say MBTA officials, should alert transit police if they notice unattended baggage or packages, oddly behaving passengers, or suspicious odors or fluids.

For nearly two years, the MBTA has run a public antiterrorism watch program, dubbed ''See Something, Say Something," that enlists subway riders as its underground eyes and ears in the Hub's homeland security effort.

No terrorist threats has been discovered on the MBTA to date, Grabauskas said. Still, officials say subway systems across the country such as Boston's remain high on the list of potential targets for terrorists.

The MBTA's program began in the summer 2004, during the Democratic National Convention, and has been mostly promulgated through subway billboards and loudspeaker announcements urging vigilance.

In 2005, commuters made 427 reports of suspicious behavior and 293 for unattended bags, according to the most recent MBTA statistics. None of them turned out to be security threats. Grabauskas said even these false alarms are useful.

''False alarms are an opportunity for us to literally drill for an incident," he said. ''It's an opportunity for us to sharpen our skills."

As with many aspects of antiterrorism efforts, the MBTA program generated mixed reaction from a small sampling of commuters yesterday.

''I think its good idea, better to be safe than sorry," said Diane Sullivan, 50, of Belmont. She said more uniformed police should be stationed at T stops. ''Who should you really report to? Sometimes there's no one to be found."

But Brendan Curran, 21, a student at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, questioned the program.

''It seems a bit weird. I wish they would just make the trains run on time," he said. ''I try not to get swept up in the whole fear hysteria."

Globe correspondent Elizabeth Raftery contributed to this story.