SiteScan - Scanning an Area for Potential Sites

The SiteScan feature allows us to search for potentially favorable sites (for retail outlets or other businesses or public services that require a local user base).  SiteScan quickly analyses a large number of sites to find the locations that best meet specific criteria (e.g. a minimum population or sufficient households with a specified income level, education, children or dwelling types) within a specified distance or drive time.

When we do not have a specific candidate business location, it is desirable to be able to create profiles for a large number of locations, which we can rank according to demographic criteria and display in a “hot spot” map that will indicate the areas where we should look for potential business locations.

	SiteScan lets us to define a “Market Area” as a rectangle of any size.  Within this area, a regular grid of sample points is established, using a spacing specified by the operator, for example 0.5 mile.
	Each point is used to generate a circle or drive time of specified size (representing a potential Trade Area), for example 1 mile radius.
	Each circle is searched, and the demographic results for each circle are used to generate a thematic “hotspot” map using grid squares centered on each point.
	Note that this thematic map is very different than a standard “boundary thematic” map (e.g. using block group boundaries).  In the SiteScan hotspot map, each region is colored according to its “accessible population” (in this case population within one mile of the cell’s center), whereas in a conventional thematic the colors represent data within the block group itself.

It is quite possible for a grid cell to have a large accessible population even though the cell itself is situated in vacant land (which could make it an ideal site for a new business location!)

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