After 18 months of random checks of passengers’ bags and luggage, Metro’s regime of random searches hasn’t yielded much, according to a new readout of Metro Transit Police’s statistics.

Since the bag searches started in December 2010, Transit Police have made zero arrests in connection with the bag checks, according to data obtained by WTOP. But the random search program, which is funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is still a success in the eyes of Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn, who tells WTOP:

“The more you do something to ensure security, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will catch somebody. But the unpredictability of it puts us in a better posture as far as protecting in an open environment.”

Perhaps, but as we contemplated back when the searches first came into effect, they’re pretty easy to avoid, considering only a handful of officers are dispatched to conduct the bag checks on any given day.

In the past 18 months, we’ve either been exceedingly lucky that every would-be Metrorail terrorist has seen a squad of Metro Transit Police rifling through riders’ backpacks and pocketbooks and aborted his or her mission, or—more likely—it’s “security theater.” That’s what the American Civil Liberties Union called the program at its outset.

And the bag checks are sooooo much the same as in other cities. What WTOP found on Metrorail hews pretty closely to the bag-check policies employed elsewhere. In Boston, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority Transit Police have been peeking into customers’ bags since 2007 and also haven’t found anything worth making an arrest over. Same goes for New York, where police have been conducting random bag searches since 2004.

But despite the rather empty results, Metro Transit Police are showing no signs of stopping the fruitless searches any time soon. Taborn says “maybe over 10” people have taken issue with having their belongings pilfered through since the program began. Moreover, he tells WTOP he “believes the public ‘welcomes’ the inspections as another layer of protection.”

And, as Taborn said in January 2011, if anyone resists turning their bag over for a random search, Transit Police will be more than happy to “observe” the detractors.