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While the ingenuity of TSA and Homeland security personnel are busy confiscating your deadly Glade candles and diabolical snow globe that do not have the "proper documentation," Subway and bus riders go disregarded and unprotected.

While terrorist attacks have dramatically decreased since the fatal plane crashes of September 11th 2001, Arnold Barnett, George Eastman Professor of Management Science at MIT's Sloan School of Management warns that our eyes should no longer be solely focused on the skies but should be reverted underground modes of transportation.

Barnett in a new study reveals that terrorist acts against subways and commuter trains have surged.

During the period 1982-91 deliberate acts of malice caused 1,327 deaths worldwide among air travelers, but none on subways/commuter trains. But between 2002-11, the pattern reversed: there were 203 aviation deaths and 804 among subway/rail commuters, according to report released by inforrms.org.

The study adds that criminal and terrorist acts account for about 8% of the overall death risk of air travel, but they account for 88% of the mortality risk on subways and commuter railroads.

Further statistics depict the implications of this reversal. A recent subway/rail commuter in the Developed World has faced twice the annual death risk of a frequent flyer, while the risk per mile traveled by subway/commuter rail was ten times as high as by air.

Barnett argues, the prevention of rail terrorism warrants high priority.

"Stopping attackers once they reach stations and trains has proved difficult, so the most realistic way to prevent attacks might be to uncover and thwart terror plots at earlier stages. It was good intelligence work that averted a planned 2009 attack on the New York subway, not security measures at Times Square or Grand Central Terminal," as reported by Informs.org