From Safe System readiness to action: Clackamas County, Oregon

Creating a shared Safe System approach

Clackamas County already had a strong track record in road safety, including an internal leadership committee and a citizens' Traffic Safety Commission. What it didn't have was a shared framework for adopting Safe System principles and associated activities across other agencies and a means for prioritising those actions. Departments that don't typically sit at the transportation table, including the Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney, and Health, Housing and Human Services, were largely working in parallel, rather than in conjunction with Clackamas County Transportation Team.

Without an independent readiness picture and a way to prioritise, the county risked spreading effort across everything at once rather than sequencing the changes that would move the needle to better road safety outcomes.

The work gave Clackamas County greater clarity on what needed to happen next.

Rob Sadowsky, Transportation Safety Outreach Coordinator at Clackamas County says:

“The targeted engagement Abley and Burgess and Niple led helped identify the gaps between our policies and day-to-day practice across departments, and that understanding shaped the work that followed. The team untangled a web of overlapping responsibilities across our county teams and turned it into a practical five-year implementation plan, with clear accountability and measures to support our Safe System approach rollout. Abley’s experience in rural and suburban areas translated perfectly to our county.

This work has given us credibility with our leadership and a clear path forward for our road safety work.”

Assessing Safe System readiness and prioritizing action

The programme moved through a staged approach; an independent readiness assessment, a prioritization exercise, development of a five-year implementation plan, and a guidebook the county and other agencies can reuse.

• Prioritizing What Matters. With more than 30 possible actions to advance Safe System adoption, the county needed a clear way to decide what to prioritize first. Abley and Burgess and Niple developed an engagement mechanism for county staff to rate each potential action on how important it was and how easy it would be to adopt. Those ratings were scored and ranked, giving the county an evidence-based order for the five-year plan, so the actions that mattered most and were easiest to action came first, and the harder, lower-priority work was sequenced for later action.

• Readiness Assessment. A county-wide survey was developed to understand county staff’s sentiment to road safety in Clackamas County. The team also ran an in-person workshop with county staff and shaped the questions used to interview people outside the usual transportation roles, including the Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney. Together, this gave a clear picture of how ready the county was across six areas: culture and commitment, leadership, planning, data analysis, project delivery and Safe System readiness.

• Five-year Implementation Plan. The prioritized actions, and gaps in readiness, were used to develop a five-year plan, grouped under six themes. Each theme has been assigned to a county representative. A set of actions has been prepared, spread across five years, along with a clear goal to be reached. The plan also builds in regular updates to the Board of County Commissioners, so progress keeps getting reported, rather than losing momentum.

• Safe System Readiness Guidebook. A guidebook has been developed for Clackamas County and any agency to pick up and use to work through their own Safe System aligned road safety program. It sets out six simple steps: pick your focus areas, check where you stand today, bring in partners outside transportation, identify possible actions, build an implementation plan, and track progress over time. It also includes sample interview and survey questions other agencies can reuse and global examples of Safe system programs, so Clackamas County and other agencies can see how other agencies have implemented the Safe System approach in their transport environments.

For Burgess and Niple, the partnership highlighted the value of Abley’s global Safe System expertise.

Kendra Schenk, Safety Specialist and Traffic Engineer at Burgess and Niple says:

“What stood out was Abley's genuine engagement and responsiveness. Working across the time difference, they turned up prepared for every session and never let distance become an issue, and we relied heavily on their global expertise in the Safe System and road safety communications space.

The quality of their deliverables, along with their communication and support throughout the project, was exceptional.”

Safe System readiness outcomes for Clackamas County

The project delivered practical and usable outputs:

• Safe System Readiness mapped out across six areas; culture and commitment, leadership, planning, data analysis, project delivery and Safe System readiness

• Actions ranked and scored by county staff, giving leadership a pathway to prioritize actions and sequence investment across a five-year time frame, instead of trying to do everything at once

• Assignment of a department with primary responsibility for each area in the five-year plan, with actions spread across the five years providing a way for each agency to take shared responsibility and work together to achieve the outcomes.

• Clear measures of success of each action, including regular updates to the Board of County Commissioners

• Six-step framework was captured in the Safe System Readiness Guidebook, complete with real-world examples, and written so that any agency, regardless of size or capacity, can pick up and apply it directly to their own context

The result is a sequenced five-year plan the county can act on, based on an independent assessment of where it stands today.

Assess your Safe System readiness and build a path to action

If your organization wants an honest picture of its Safe System readiness and/or a practical way to turn your commitment to the Safe System approach into everyday practice, we can help. Abley brings 20 years of international expertise in Safe System thinking and road safety communications to road safety planning and programming. We can work alongside local based consultants and agencies to build clear, workable paths to Safe System adoption. Get in touch with Cath or Shane to talk about what we can do for your program.