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Contractors' Warehouse provided transaction data for both study stores for the calendar year 2004. <br />The busiest days of the year for each store were ranked based on the number of transactions, and the <br />first five busiest sales days were identified. These data showed that the peak sales day at both stores <br />occurred in October. In fact, the busiest days at both stores occurred mostly in the fall. The data also <br />showed that the majority of the five busiest days at each store occur on a Saturday. <br />Regardless of the month in which it occurs, the design day specifies what level of estimated parking <br />demand should be accommodated. If a planner wishes to provide enough parking spaces to <br />accommodate the estimated maximum number of parking spaces that would ever be demanded at a <br />store, the design day would be the busiest day of the year. However, designing parking lots for their <br />maximum demand is not practical from an efficiency or cost-effectiveness perspective. For example, <br />if enough parking spaces are provided to accommodate the absolute peak demand (the 100`x' <br />percentile), there would be a certain number of spaces provided that would only be needed for one <br />day during the entire year, and then for only one or two hours of that specific day. In contrast, <br />choosing the 5"' busiest day as the design day would mean that some customers may not be able to <br />find a parking space immediately during the peak hour of the busiest four or five days of the year; <br />however, they should have no problem finding a parking space in the lot at any other time. <br />The commonly used design level for a regional shopping center is the 20'1' busiest hour, which <br />typically occurs on the 101h busiest day. For this analysis, the 5'h busiest day was chosen as the <br />design day for Contractors' Warehouse stores because it provides adequate parking for the vast <br />majority of the year while still providing a savings in the number of parking spaces that need to be <br />built. This design day reflects the 99'h percentile and means that each store would have adequate <br />parking spaces for the parking demand experienced every hour of every day of the year except <br />during the peak hours of demand on the four busiest days of the year. This is an adequate choice <br />considering the cost of allocating land to parking use and the relatively few customers that would be <br />affected. <br />The parking studies were conducted on a Saturday in October in an attempt to study parking activity <br />during the busiest time of the year on the busiest day of the week (based on the 2004 data). The <br />sales and transaction data provided by Contractors' Warehouse were used to adjust the study day <br />activity levels to the selected design-day levels. Design-day peak parking demand values were <br />calculated by factoring the study data up or down to reflect the activity levels at the stores on their <br />5''' busiest days. In the case of the Pomona store, the number of transactions was less than the 5'1' <br />busiest day in 2004, and so the peak parking demand was factored up. In contrast, the number of <br />transactions at the Montebello store was larger than the 5'h busiest day in 2004, and so the peak <br />parking demand was factored down. <br />Parking Study of Two Contractors Iarehouse Stores - Final Report Page 4 <br />31A40