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Contractors' Warehouse provided transaction data for both study stores for the calendar year 2004. The busiest days ofthe year for each store were ranked based on the number oftransactions, and the first five busiest sales days were identified. These data showed that the peak sales day at both stores occurred in October. In fact, the busiest days at both stores occurred mostly in the fall. The data also showed that the majority of the five busiest days at each store occur on a Saturday. Regardless of the month in which it occurs, the design day specifies what level of estimated parking demand should be accommodated. If a planner wishes to provide enough parking spaces to accommodate the estimated maximum number of parking spaces that would ever be demanded at a store, the design day would be the busiest day of the year. However, designing parking lots for their maximum demand is not practical from an efficiency or cost-effectiveness perspective. For example, if enough parking spaces are provided to accommodate the absolute peak demand (the IOOth percentile), there would be a certain number of spaces provided that would only be needed for one day during the entire year, and then for only one or two hours of that specific day. In contrast, choosing the 5th busiest day as the design day would mean that some customers may not be able to find a parking space immediately during the peak hour of the busiest four or five days of the year; however, they should have no problem finding a parking space in the lot at any other time. The commonly used design level for a regional shopping center is the 20th busiest hour, which typically occurs on the 10th busiest day. For this analysis, the 5th busiest day was chosen as the design day for Contractors ' Warehouse stores because it provides adequate parking for the vast majority of the year while still providing a savings in the number of parking spaces that need to be built. This design day reflects the 99th percentile and means that each store would have adequate parking spaces for the parking demand experienced every hour of every day of the year except during the peak hours of demand on the four busiest days of the year. This is an adequate choice considering the cost of allocating land to parking use and the relatively few customers that would be affected. The parking studies were conducted on a Saturday in October in an attempt to study parking activity during the busiest time of the year on the busiest day of the week (based on the 2004 data). The sales and transaction data provided by Contractors' Warehouse were used to adjust the study day activity levels to the selected design-day levels. Design-day peak parking demand values were calculated by factoring the study data up or down to reflect the activity levels at the stores on their 5th busiest days. In the case of the Pomona store, the number of transactions was less than the 5th busiest day in 2004, and so the peak parking demand was factored up. In contrast, the number of transactions at the Montebello store was larger than the 5th busiest day in 2004, and so the peak parking demand was factored down. Parking Study of Two Contractors Warehouse Stores - Final Report Page 4 A-12 31A-30