If you have travelled anywhere on a train over the past ten years, the chances are you’ve heard the ‘see it, say it, sorted’ announcement – or tried your best to ignore it.

The safety slogan has become a part of travel since it first launched in 2016, with people being told to contact the British Transport Police on 61016 if they see ‘something that doesn’t look right.’

It has spawned countless memes and jokes over the years, with descriptions ranging from mildly irritating to loathed as commuters are exposed to it daily.

But now the Department for Transport has relaunched the campaign to try and tackle rising crime on public transport.

It’s cost of around £400,000 for the relaunch, with the slogan staying the same.

New announcements – made using a real human voice rather than AI – include more detailed examples of kinds of things that could be considered a potential safety risk.

The government has also announced £17 million to improve CCTV cameras on the rail network so that the police can have better access to footage from stations.

Last year, there were 255,088 texts made to the BTP phone line for passengers – more than eightfold since the safety campaign first launched.

Meanwhile, violent crime on the transport networks targeting women and girls has increased, with 11,000 incidents reported in 2023-24 – a 20% increase compared to the previous year. Assaults on passengers were also on the rise.

This Is Not Right

On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women’s Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.

Read more:

• Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro’s year-long violence against women campaign
• Remembering the women killed by men in 2024

With sexual crimes against women on public transport also on the rise in recent years, the outlook for travelling alone as a woman appears to be bleak.

However, the rail minister, Lord Hendy of Richmond, has sought to reassure women and girls.

Speaking to Metro at Victoria station, he said: ‘This campaign is designed to ask not only you but people around you to spot things going on. If you feel vulnerable, in a difficult situation, reminding others that there is a way they can report, is important.  

‘For you yourself, it is an invitation when something is going on, you can just quietly sit there and text and say what’s happening.  

‘If we didn’t do it, you wouldn’t have those opportunities, and it would be more difficult to say it.

‘And you can say it in real time, you don’t have to make a fuss and make a call, just sit there and text, and then the cops will know.’

Lord Hendy admitted he is pleased that the slogan is staying the same despite calls to change it, and has also said he has used the service himself in the past.

When asked about the criticism that the slogan sounds like people are told to ‘sort it’ themselves, he said: ‘It’s not an invitation to sort the problem yourself. And I don’t think many people think it is. It’s an invitation for people on stations and on trains to tell others what’s going on in order to sort out issues, in particular, for vulnerable people.

‘The government is committed to reducing violence against women and girls – and that’s much more important than anybody who thinks “oh dear, there’s another announcement.”‘

British Transport Police Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi said that while the slogan is about national security, it has also brought in wider benefits over the years from the text messaging, in particular in relation to violence against women and girls.

She told Metro: ‘Passengers play their part in helping to create a hostile environment for criminality on the railway. In the modern world we live in, people don’t want to speak loudly on the telephone and call 999 or 111, whereas you can have a text conversation.  

‘The simple advantage is that you can report criminality and play your part in making it a hostile environment for sex offenders and people who are violent, and we want to deal with that.’

Texts to the phone line do not disappear into the ether, but they are checked and triaged, or urgently assessed, for a response.

Chief Constable D’Orsi said: ‘It goes to our call centre up in Birmingham, it gets triaged as an immediate call with the person, and we’ll ask for more information.

‘The onboard train crew may take a look on what’s happening, and we may board officers at the next available station and come and see what the problem is.

‘My appeal to people is: know what train you boarded, say which direction you’re going in and say which carriage you’re in, that’s really helpful to put that in the original text.’

When asked about the possible closure of dozens of BTP stations across the UK affecting response time, she said the force has had to make some ‘difficult decisions’ to reduce the size of its operation.

She said it has had to ‘prioritise’ and assess where the demand is.

She suggested the recent rise in reports of transport crime affecting women and girls could be partially explained by an ‘increase in confidence and trust of victims in policing to report it.’

‘Confidence in policing has been rocked previously, particularly for women, so it is good to see more confidence in people reporting,’ she said. ‘We are seeing more bystanders reporting behaviour that they see as unacceptable.  

‘We shouldnt lose the focus that within there may be people wanting to come to the railway to commit harrssment, sexual offences, and we are determined to bring the law down heavily on those people. There is no place for sex offenders, predatory sex offenders and people who want to harass women and girls to come onto the railway and think that is acceptable.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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