Mapping Services

HRA GIS professionals can produce a variety of custom maps at various levels, from single-store locations to city, region, state, or country mapping. Our custom maps can be based on virtually any specifications you provide. 

Our strategic mapping services provide a series of maps designed to facilitate comprehensive market analysis. We have years of experience preparing maps that analyze sales patterns, competition, vehicle traffic, demographic trends, and many other geographic and market variables. Using a variety of data sets, we produce maps that help you analyze your business from a geographic perspective, assisting in your strategic planning activities.

HRA is an industry leader in using GIS technology to visualize and quantify store trade areas, whether based on customer level data or estimated data. Trade areas can be displayed in a number of ways, including outlining area territories or using spider diagrams and dot density maps to illustrate the proportion of customers coming from particular locations.

HRA mapping specialists are skilled at creating unique and one-of-a-kind maps to fill your very specific needs. We have created numerous special purpose maps–ranging from delivery areas for a bakery to courtroom exhibit maps in support of litigation –and we’ll be happy to work with you to create a special mapping project to your exact specifications. 

Together with our field services and real estate research teams, we design detailed street-level maps for field survey work. We track down appropriate data sources across the country or around the world and design and assemble maps that help assure surveys of the highest quality and reliability.

Many of our clients have a need for multiple copies of specific maps or for maps that utilize multiple overlays to display different variables. We are experienced at automated map production–for jobs both large and small–using state-of-the-art mapping tools such as MapInfo and MapPoint.

Geographic Analysis

Using the latest GIS software and hardware technology, HRA creates maps that help you visualize and analyze geography-based market dynamics in a wide variety of ways.

HRA applies GIS data and tools to demographic profiling. We can identify and apply geo-demographic data sets for any area for which data is available. Our demographic profiling engagements range from common census and market geographies to radius ring reports, custom polygons, and a wide variety of other types of profiles.

Our GIS department is an industry leader in creating mapping solutions that help evaluate proposed site locations. HRA has been assisting Fortune 100 clients in the site selection process for more than 20 years.

HRA clients often have a need to import geographic data into unique or specialized software packages. Our GIS team provides knowledge and expertise in manipulating geographic data for importing into software such as Tactician and ScanUS, using perl, awk, and other text manipulation engines.

HRA uses a variety of geocoding services/engines to provide a level of geocoding accuracy unavailable from any single vendor. We can often provide these geocoding services at significantly lower cost than any of today’s most popular geocoding providers. We can also provide "perfect" or manual geocoding services for jobs of any size. 

Working in concert with our Information Services Group, we perform advanced statistical investigations and develop models to help answer crucial questions. Our modeling services include performing environmental analyses, estimating sales from a proposed location, and answering critical questions such as which areas are most suitable for development.  

Consulting and Training

HRA is familiar with a wide variety of database and GIS software, operating systems, and networking technologies. We can provide the technical expertise to assist in setting up an on-site GIS system or to host a system from our office.

Many of our customers have a need to run a mapping system from their desktops. HRA consultants can spec out and recommend a mapping system to fit virtually any budget. We can also prepare the initial data and customize the map software to your specific business and workflow needs.

HRA’s expert consultants and technicians can help you with crucial needs such as coping with staff turnover or getting more value from your existing mapping platform. Our staff is experienced with a wide variety of GIS and mapping systems including ArcView, ARC/INFO, MapInfo, AtlasGIS, BusinessMap, DeLorme X-Map, MapPoint .Net, Tactician, and many more.

Our GIS experts can provide one-on-one or small team training in MapInfo and MapPoint, either at your site or at our headquarters in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, just outside Chicago.