One of the leaders in connected car services and transportation analytics, Inrix, has introduced a new dataset in its Site Selection suite that enables retailers to more efficiently, affordably and accurately choose new store locations based on detailed vehicle traffic flow information.
Faced with constant competition, forward-thinking retailers are increasingly turning to big data analytics to inform their business decisions. National companies across the USA, including Famous Dave’s BBQ, Five Guys, Jiffy Lube, Pita Pit, Planet Fitness, and Wing Stop Sports, are currently using Inrix Volume Profile, a big data-fueled dataset that uses real-time, historical and predictive traffic information and travel pattern analysis to enable the selection of retail locations with promising return-on-investment.
Part of the company’s Site Selection suite, the updated Volume Profile 2018 provides typical traffic counts by day of week, time of day and direction of travel, to more accurately and efficiently choose new store locations. As the only dataset with day-parted, direction of travel traffic counts, the dataset helps companies determine the potential profitability of millions of retail locations.
Eight of the largest site selection companies in the industry currently use Inrix traffic services, including Buxton, eSite Analytics, IdealSpot, LocateAI, Megalytics, Property Capsule, SiteZeus and Tango Analytics. The dataset not only provides insight on how many potential customers drive by a candidate location, but also identifies who they are, when they visit, and where their trips originate and end. The Inrix Site Selection product suite eliminates the need for companies to physically visit locations and conduct expensive studies.
The Inrix Site Selection product suite includes:
• Volume Profile, which provides typical vehicle count data on more than 2.6m miles (4.2 million km) of roads nationwide by day of week, time of day and direction of travel;
• Parking provides typical parking availability for both on-street and off-street to better understand customer parking trends at candidate locations;
• Trade Areas includes anonymized, geographic of customer trips data, including GPS-based starting and ending points for trips;
• Drive Time measures distances in terms of minutes rather than miles, relaying how far customers travel, and the accessibility and desirability of a candidate site.
“Never underestimate the importance of visibility and accessibility a site offers,” noted Kevin Foreman, general manager and vice president of enterprise at Inrix. “Whether it is ensuring that a drive-through location is based on right-hand turns, or determining the neighborhoods to consider based on target audiences, our Site Selection and Volume Profiles have transformed the process of scouting and securing new locations from a demanding, time-consuming project to a more intelligent, data-driven development.”
Jeff Rubino, vice president of Five Guys Real Estate, commented, “In order to evaluate a traffic corridor and to make determination on which corner we should locate, it is imperative to look at the decision point from multiple angles.
“Inrix Volume Profile is one of the more important datasets we have found to determine the inflow and outflow of traffic as it relates to who our customer is, and which corner makes the best decision for us.”
