V ACCESSIBILITY AS A DETERMINANT OF RETAIL SALES by ROBERT BREUER

ACCESSIBILITY AS A DETERMINANT OF RETAIL SALES by ROBERT BREUER Submitted to the Department of City and Regional Planning on May 18,.1962, in partial fulfillment of' the requirements for the degree of Master of City Planning. The relationship between accessibility and the spatial distribution of urban activities and their interactions has received widespread interest from urban planners, but few attempts have been made to quantify and evaluate this relationship in the field of retail activity. The object of this thesis is: 1) to develop a number of measures of retail accessibility; 2) to evaluate the importance of accessibility as a determinant of the volume of retail sales; and 3) to consider the significance of a sales potential concept based on retail accessibility. Accessibility is measured by four methods which differ in the manner and extent to which they include the effects of competition and the effects of separation. In an empirical test of these methods, accessibility ratings are derived for a set of new car dealers in the Boston area and those ratings are correlated with their annual sales. Results indicate that accessibility, by any method of measurement, is not the major determinant of the volume of sales. Limitations of the test case preclude a precise judgment of any particular method. The characteristics of sales potential maps based on these methods are then considered; the nature of competitive accessibility ratings makes such sales potentials inherently unstable. Further research into the relationship between retail development and sales potential is required before the significance of a sales potential concept can be evaluated for planning purposes. In the field of market analysis, potential ratings may be of specific value. Thesis Supervisor: Aaron Fleisher Title: Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Studies