This paper describes the development of a business establishment location choice model for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) in Canada. The location of establishments is the origin or destination of freight trips and passenger trips (e.g., shopping trips, employment location etc.). The conventional treatment of establishments is that they act as independent decision-making agents when determining where to locate. However, it is known that many establishments are members of larger firms making strategic location decisions among multiple regions and locations within said regions. The location choice decision is often made to reduce logistics costs, travel time, and maximizing market coverage. Hence, depending on the type of the firm, there could be a significant proportion of intra-firm freight trips, which should be distinguished from inter-firm freight trips. In this study, we focus on location choice of establishments through the lens of firm membership. Firm membership is identified for establishments in the retail and wholesale trade sectors and used to calculate intra-establishment distances. The model is expanded to include intra-firm panel effects to account for correlations in the decision-making of establishments. It is found that establishments in the wholesale industry tend to locate in lower population density areas partially due to their larger land footprints while retail establishments that sell everyday goods such as grocery stores tend to locate in high population density areas. A key finding is the distinction between intra-firm and inter-firm distance preferences. It is demonstrated that establishments from the same firm tend to strategically locate farther from one another, while still choosing to co-locate with other establishments from the same industry. This result highlights a gap in existing methods of analysis, an inability of these models to distinguish between spatial considerations on establishment location choice. We propose the development of choice models capable of representing such dynamics.

本文描述了加拿大大多伦多和汉密尔顿地区 (GTHA) 商业机构选址模型的开发。机构的位置是货运旅行和客运旅行的起点或目的地（例如，购物旅行、就业地点等）。对机构的传统处理是，它们在确定位置时充当独立的决策代理。然而，众所周知，许多机构是大公司的成员，他们在多个区域和所述区域内的位置之间做出战略位置决策。位置选择决策通常是为了降低物流成本、旅行时间和最大化市场覆盖率。因此，根据公司的类型，可能会有很大比例的公司内部货运，这应该与公司间的货运旅行区分开来。在这项研究中，我们通过公司成员的视角关注机构的位置选择。为零售和批发贸易部门的机构确定公司成员资格，并用于计算机构内距离。该模型被扩展为包括公司内面板效应，以解释机构决策中的相关性。研究发现，批发行业的机构往往位于人口密度较低的地区，部分原因是其占地面积较大，而销售日常用品的零售机构（如杂货店）往往位于人口密度高的地区。一个关键发现是公司内部和公司间距离偏好之间的区别。事实证明，来自同一家公司的机构往往在战略上彼此相距较远，同时仍选择与同一行业的其他机构同处一地。这一结果突出了现有分析方法的差距，这些模型无法区分建立地点选择的空间考虑。我们建议开发能够代表这种动态的选择模型。