2018 Volume 4 Issue 1 Pages A_97-A_105
In many Japanese cities, congestions caused by large-scale retail stores are big problems. In order to solve this problem for them, we conducted a research on traffic impact assessment focusing on a method of calculation for traffic of large-scale retail stores from various directions. At present, many large-scale retail stores use a circular trading area to estimate the traffic volume. In this research, it was found that the sizes of the circular catchment areas were uneven by the stores, and there were low correlations with the sizes of the stores. Furthermore, we succeeded in reducing the errors in estimations by using the catchment area based on travel times for calculation of the number of customers by directions and the frequencies of their visits depending on the distance. Even in the case of using a circular catchment area, we succeeded in reducing the errors in estimations by matching the sizes of the trade areas to the sizes of the stores. From these results, we also identified the relationship between the sizes of the stores and the sizes of the trade areas.
