michel.calciu@univ-lille1.fr ()
This paper presents and
applies an original method that evaluates and divides the market area among
retail outlets, based on concepts and structures from the central places
theory. It draws on a geometrical approximation of market areas, the “gravity
polygons”, that produces attractiveness sensitive partitions of the market
space. The methodology that has been developed introduces flexibility and
measurement in the central places approach. Solutions to integrate spatial
choice models and to identify hierarchies in the spatial organisation of the
market are suggested. The application deals with the spatial distribution of
bank retail networks in an urban agglomeration of one million inhabitants. The
calculations traced the spatial behaviour of over 200000 customers serviced by
the analysed network and produced positive results that incite to apply the
method to other contexts.
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