Auto Dealerships

Motionworks Placecast™ provides visits and occupancy for Motionworks Places and Regions since 2019. These insights are produced with the Motionworks Population Intelligence Platform. Placecast™ is used for investigating visitation trends at locations through time.

The following document provides an overview of the validation of Motionworks Auto Dealerships. Motionworks currently measures visitation at 27,980 auto dealerships. Places can be standalone or within a larger building or a complex. Out of the total number of places measured, 27,885 are standalone locations where they can be directly measured. The figure below indicates the distribution of all Motionworks Auto Dealerships across the United States.

Place Description

An establishment primarily oriented toward the sale and delivery of automobiles. Auto dealerships should be primarily customer facing. Auto Dealership includes major automotive brand franchise retail locations (e.g., Mossy Nissan, Bomnin Chevy), independent used-vehicle resellers, and showroom-only dealers (e.g., Tesla, Rivian). Many major automotive franchises and independent dealers will be stand alone locations with sales and show rooms surrounded by large parking lots), displaying inventory. Showroom-only dealers are often located in traditional retail shopping locations (e.g., shopping malls, downtowns). Motorcycle, powersports, farm, commercial truck dealerships are included in this category as well if the business is primary focused on selling new and used vehicles.

Place Stats

Place Type	Number of Places	Minimum Size* -sq ft-	Median Size -sq ft-	Maximum Size* -sq ft-
Auto Dealership	27,980	1,061	14,166	59,515

* Minimum and maximum size represent the 5th and 95th percentile.

	Median Visits per Week 2026	Median Visits per Week 2025	Median Visits per Week 2024	Median Visits per Week 2023	Median Dwell Time 2026	Median Dwell Time 2025	Median Dwell Time 2024	Median Dwell Time 2023
V2.2	1,029	1,004	952	992	36	36	36	36
V2.3	1,237	1,314	1,278	-	35	35	35	-

Weekly Visit Trends

The figure below shows the trend of weekly visits - median (red) as well as the 25th to 75th percentile band (green) - over time across all auto dealerships.

V2.2

V2.3

Weekly Visit Per 1K SQFT Trends (Standalone)

The figure below shows the trend of weekly visits per 1000 square feet of space (ksf) - median (red) as well as the 25th to 75th percentile band (green) - over time across only standalone auto dealerships that can be directly measured or at least have a polygon/size.

V2.2

V2.3

Day of Week and Hour of the Day Profiles

The figure below shows the average ratio of the weekly visits that fall within a specific hour of a specific day of the week. The color represents the year, and each band represents the variation over the months of the year.

Weekly Visit Scores

Each Motionworks place is assigned scores that measure how closely its observed behavior matches what would be expected for similar places of the same type, in the same general area, and of similar size and urbanicity. These scores are used internally to identify places with unusual behavior — those places have their visit estimates, dwell times, and hourly profiles produced through the unfocused place estimate methodology rather than direct measurement.

	Average Dwell Score	Average Trade Area Distance Footprint Score	Average Profile Score	Average Visit Score
V2.2	0.51	0.51	0.52	0.50
V2.3	0.49	0.49	0.49	0.45

What the Scores Measure

Four dimensions are scored independently each month:

Visit Score — compares the place's monthly visits per square foot against similar places. A high score means the place sees significantly more or fewer visitors per unit of space than would be expected for its type and location.
Dwell Score — compares the average time visitors spend at the place against similar places. Both unusually short and unusually long dwell times result in a higher score.
Profile Score — compares the shape of the place's hourly visit pattern across the week against similar places. A bar that is busiest on Tuesday mornings, for example, would score differently than the typical bar crowd pattern.
Visitor Distance Score — compares the typical distance visitors travel from home to reach the place against similar places. A neighborhood coffee shop drawing visitors from 50+ miles away, or a major convention center drawing only hyper-local visitors, would both receive elevated scores.

How to Interpret the Score

Scores range from 0 to 1. A score closer to 0 means the place behaves as expected. A score closer to 1 means the place is a significant outlier relative to its peer group.

The table above shows the all-time average score across all Auto Dealerships in the Motionworks database. Because scores are centered around the typical place in each peer group, all-time averages tend to settle near 0.5 across most place types — this is expected. The graphs below show how scores have trended month by month since January 2019, including the 25th and 75th percentile band across individual places.

Visit Score Graph

Dwell Score Graph

Profile Score Graph

Footprint Trade Area Distance Score Graph

Tradeareas

A trade area is where customers or visitors live and how far they are likely to travel to an establishment or neighborhood. Motionworks Placecast™ Trade Areas documents the home location of visitors by the number of visits to a Motionworks Place or Region every month since 2019. These insights are produced with the Motionworks Population Intelligence Platform.

Verification

Motionworks verifies Trade Area estimates to ensure confidence and illustrate the quality of our data. Motionworks maintains data on expected trade areas by place type from trusted third parties such as travel surveys and academic research. The following tables provide an overview of verification for each Motionworks place type nationally compared to target values Motionworks has identified for each place type. Due to the detail of Motionworks place types, there is not always a one-to-one relationship between Motionworks place types and those identified in studies and research. As a result, some values from studies and research are shared across multiple Motionworks place types.

Tradeareas visits distribution

Motionworks segments trade areas by 1) local, 2) hyper local, 3) non-local. Local is defined as the home to place distance is < 50 miles, Hyper local is defined as the home and place have the same Census block group, and Non-local is defined as the home to place distance is > 50 miles. The figure below illustrates the distribution of visits by trade area segment.

Local (< 50 miles from home) Statistics

Version	Mean Travel Distance to Location	Motionworks Estimated Mean (202602)	Change from prior month	Change from prior year
v2.2	17.4 miles	21.7 miles	-0.5 %	21.6 %
v2.3	13.3 miles	8.2 miles	-60.8 %	21.7 %

Hyper Local (same home and place Census block group) Statistics

Version	Mean Travel Distance to Location	Motionworks Estimated Mean (202602)	Change from prior month	Change from prior year
v2.2	4.8 miles	4.0 miles	-42.599999999999994 %	125.0 %
v2.3	5.3 miles	3.3 miles	-85.4 %	107.9 %

Non-Local (>50 miles from home) Statistics

Version	Mean Travel Distance to Location	Motionworks Estimated Mean (202602)	Change from prior month	Change from prior year
v2.2	195.5 miles	209.0 miles	6.800000000000004 %	-1.1 %
v2.3	217.0 miles	207.3 miles	8.450000000000003 %	-5.6 %

Home to place distance distribution

The figure below illustrates the home to place distance distribution by distance bin.