How Average Drive Time Report works

The Average Drive Time Report is primarily used for forecast sales modeling analysis. It allows you to analyze existing stores with associated customers and determine the average drive time of all your customers in that market. This is commonly done utilizing the customer-derived trade area tool from Business Analyst to define the extent of the market around your stores based on the number and distribution of your customers or based on some volumetric factor such as sales.

This trade area is then analyzed as follows:

• The trade area is divided up into multiple sectors.
• Each sector is analyzed to determine the most distant point from the store to the edge of the trade area.
• A drive time is calculated between the store and the edge of the trade area for each sector.
• An average drive time is then calculated from these values.

The result is an average drive time given for each trade in the analysis. For example, if you ran a customer-derived trade area of 40/60/80% of your customers, you would be provided with a report that detailed the average drive for each of the three trade areas used in this report. This would allow you to determine how to best prospect a new location based on which of these trade areas best defined your core customers. You could simply take the average value(s) to seek new markets by generating drive times around potential new store sites and evaluating the demographics in that area to see if they match the demographics of a successful store.