61016 British Transport Police text number

[Appikate]

Was on a packed train today when a man became aggressive. We texted the BTP on 61016 and the BTP came within 3 minutes or so and took the man away. A kind rail worker who happened to be next to me told me about the number. I just said aggressive man in carriage x and they appeared soon after. I have now saved the number in my phone and encourage you to do the same. It was great to be able to do it discreetly and for something to happen so quickly.

I’ve saved this number already because of a previous, similar story here.

How do you know your carriage number? I guess it’s written somewhere, was it easily visible?

In some trains it's above the door.

Some phone networks don't allow texts to short codes by the way.

Some phone networks don't allow texts to short codes by the way.

Ohhhh. How can I find out without texting it? I went through the proper process to add it, clicked on a link or two etc. Maybe they would have said then if my phone wasn’t compatible? I use GiffGaff.

They are really good I’ve found. Unfortunately I’ve had to use it several times.

Thanks - that’s useful info.

You can test it by trying a benign one, such as a radio station or something? It's the network rather than the phone I think.

It looks like they do, but it's an extra charge:

https://community.giffgaff.com/d/34061014-short-sms-codes

I don't use them so not sure how their charging works or how they would take this extra cost.

My provider is Smarty and it looks like they enabled it last year, so I'd assume most do now.

The only reason I know all this is because I tried to use that number a few years ago and it didn't work, my then network didn't support it and I had a message exchange with them asking them why not. (No real answer, except "working towards it"). Since then I've been wary of short codes not working.

Blimey. It’s an emergency number, it didn’t occur to me it might not work 😵‍💫.

Thanks though.