A Synthesis of Some Market Area Delimitation Models

Reilly's law of markets delimits a breakpoint between the trade areas of a pair of centers based on their size and spatial separation. The construction of trade boundaries between more than two centers is inadequately dealt with in the literature. This paper generalizes Reilly's market model using probability contour mapping and numerical integration. Since the allocation phase of the model can be based on any suitable interaction model, a wide variety of retail analysis techniques is synthesized. Using computer graphics, both descriptive and predictive uses of the model are illustrated.