In this abbreviated case study, we take a look at some challenges that King County Metro was able to solve through leveraging Origami's EHS solution and the outcomes they achieved.
About King County Metro
With an average annual ridership of more than 122.5M (2016-2020), King County Metro serves the Seattle, WA area and operates one of the largest public transit systems in the U.S. Transportation modes include bus, trolley, streetcar, water taxi, and light rail. The agency has 9 main base locations with over 50 other operations, facility, and support locations. King County metro has approximately 5,500 employees (3,000 operators) with 12 employees on their safety team.
Legacy Systems
Prior to implementing Origami Risk, King County relied on a plethora of outdated software systems and paper forms for gathering data. As a result, staff spent a significant amount of time manually entering information. The team at King County knew they needed a single repository for all things safety. King County partnered with Origami’s service team to design workflows to establish a more efficient technology system for safety program management.
Origami Solutions
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Single system to submit, track, and report incidents from anywhere by any employee at any time (including accident reports, safety suggestions, and security incidents)
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Investigations automatically triggered from incident creation
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Safety meetings to track attendance, list open items, and link to dashboards
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Driver safety award program update
Results
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Immediate visibility into incidents details instead of weeks
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Ability to quickly identify “geographical hot spots” where incidents occur so modifications can be made to improve route safety
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Investigations completed in a more timely manner
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12 legacy systems and 90 paper forms retired
“Having all of our safety information in one place — instead of manually entered into multiple systems — is revolutionary. We now have instant visibility into incidents and the ability to follow up with operators. People at our organization know that when they submit items, action will be taken.” said Alex Zastrow, Safety Data Analyst at King County Metro.
Success Spotlight: King County Metro Safe Driver Award Program
Challenge
For three decades, the King County Metro’s Safe Driver Award program has been used to instill a culture of safety by recognizing and rewarding those who operate the agency’s buses, trains, and other modes of transportation. However, the process for tracking safe-driving records and gift options selected by employees was extremely time consuming and not scalable, as it included cross-checking employment and incident data across multiple databases, performing manual calculations, and use of spreadsheets for selecting and keeping track of awards. King County Metro knew they could leverage technology to make the process easier for the administrative team, base chiefs, and operators. They partnered with Origami Risk to make it happen.
Solution
The first step was to load legacy data into Origami and configure easy-to-use Safe Driver Award-specific screens. With all the data from multiple departments in a single database, the process is now simple:
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Using Origami’s automation tools, calculations are performed, a list of eligible operators is generated, and each operator’s supervising base chief is sent a notification
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Base chiefs then meet with the operators to view the award options and make a selection
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The King County Metro safety team uses that information to order and track the awards sent to the operators
Since migrating to Origami, the organization has given out over 300 safe driver awards (both their own internal program and the National Safety Council awards for which operators are eligible).
Outcomes
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Reduction of hours of manual data entry and time-consuming tasks for safety team members and drivers’ supervisors
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Greater acceptance of the use of a technology system for safety
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Positive and direct interaction between chief and operators, solidifying a strong safety culture
“By leveraging Origami, we were able to redesign the entire Safe Drive Award process to be easier and more user friendly and encouraging positive interactions between the chief and operations,” said Alex Zastrow. “It has had a huge impact on our safety culture that we didn’t anticipate when we launched.”
To learn more about Origami’s EHS solution suite and how it can help your organization, visit our solution overview page or start a conversation with us.
