STIB receives three suspicious activity calls per day

 The Brussels transport company STIB receives three reports of suspicious activity every day.

Any Brussels traveller who sees something they find suspicious can call into the 1707 emergency telephone line, and posters encouraging travellers to report suspicious activity can be found in most every metro station since the March 22, 2016 terror attacks.

According to new figures released by the Brussels transport company, the emergency telephone line has received 4,338 calls reporting suspicious activity since January 2017. The majority of those calls were prank or wrong-number calls, leaving 1,351 genuine reports of suspicious activity, or roughly three calls per day.

“People are clearly more suspicious when there is a lot of talk of attacks in the media,” STIB spokesperson Françoise Ledune told La Dernière Heure.

Most of the suspicious activity calls focused on three types of activity from fellow travellers – loitering, incoherent speech or behaviour, and the making of threats.

The 1707 telephone line can be reached 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Photo: DPA / Belga