Queuing Theory

1. Outline

Characteristics of a waiting line system

- Arrival Characteristics
- Waiting Line Characteristics
- Service Facility Characteristics
- Measuring the Queues Performance
- Queuing Costs
The Variety of Queuing Models
Model A: Single-Channel Queuing Model with
Poisson Arrivals and Exponential Service Times
Model B: Multiple-Channel Queuing Model
Model C: Constant Service Time Model
Model D: Limited Population Model
Other Queuing Approaches.

2.

Imagine the following situations:

Shoppers waiting in front of a checkout stand in a supermarket;
Cars waiting at a red traffic light;
Patients waiting in a lounge of a medical centre;
Planes waiting for taking off in an airport;
Customers waiting for tables in Pizza Hut
What these situations have in common is the situation of waiting?
Waiting causes inconvenience, but like it or not, it is part of our daily life. All we
hope to achieve is to reduce the inconvenience to bearable levels.
The waiting phenomenon is the direct result of randomness in the operation
service facilities.
In general, the customers arrival and service time are not known in advance.
Our objective in studying the operation of a service facility under random
conditions is to secure some characteristics that measure the performance of the
system under study.

3.

Waiting Line Examples

Situation
Bank
Doctors Office
Traffic intersection
Assembly Line
Airport

Arrivals
Customers
Patient
Cars
Parts
Airplanes

Servers
Teller
Doctor
Light
Workers
Runways

Service Process
Deposit etc
Treatment
Controlled Passage
Assembly
Landing/Take off

Why do we have to wait?

Why do services have queues?

Processing time and or arrival time variance
Costs of capacity
. Can we afford to always have more people than
customers?
Efficiency
For example, at the doctors office you wait most of the
time the doctor is busy or has emergency.

4. So what is a queue?

A line
-

Can you give examples that are not formally a line of

people?
Do all queues serve one customer at a time?
Can we have multiple queues with our system?

So queues are then anyplace where we have work (customers in a service)

waiting to be processed.

5. Waiting lines

First studied by A. K. Erlang in 1913 analyzed telephone facilities

Body of knowledge called queuing theory Queue is another name for
waiting line
Decision problem Balance cost of providing good service with cost of
customers waiting.

6. Characteristics of a queuing system

Arrival Characteristics: Comprises of the size of the calling population,

the patterns of arrival at the queuing systems and the behaviors of the
arrivals.
Size of the calling population

Pattern of arrivals at the queuing system

Behaviour of the arrivals:

7. Waiting line characteristics: the length of a line can be either limited or

unlimited. A queue is limited when it cannot, by law of physical restrictions,
increase to an infinite length. A queue is unlimited when its size is unrestricted,
as in the case of the tool booth serving arriving automobiles.

8. Elements of Waiting Lines

Waiting lines result because customers do not arrive at a constant, evenly

paced rate, nor they all served in an equal amount of time.
Decisions about waiting lines and the management of waiting lines are
based on these averages for customer arrivals and service times. They are
used in queuing formulas to compute operating characteristics.
Operating characteristics are average values for characteristics that
describe the performance of a waiting line system.

9. Implications of Waiting lines

Cost of queues
Loss of business
- customers leaving
- Customers refusing to wait
Loss of goodwill, that is reputation
Reduction in customer satisfaction
Congestion may disrupt other business operations.

10. Costs of queues

No queue:
- wasted capacity: can also be a competitive advantage(no waiting)
Queue: provider costs:
- lost customers
- annoyed customers
- space
provider opportunities
- move to other parts of system (increased sales)
- customer costs - wasted time.

11. The Single-Server Waiting Line System

A single waiting line is the simplest form of queuing system.

Components of a waiting line system include arrivals, servers, and the
waiting line structure.
The most important factors to consider in analyzing a queuing system:
- The Queue Discipline
- The Nature of the calling population
- The arrival rate
- The service rate

12. Basic components of the Queuing system

(a) Input source
- Generates customers for the service mechanism
- Can be characterized by observing the following factors:
(i)
size
- infinite source : customer arrivals are restricted
- finite source : the number of potential customers is limited.
(ii)
arrival distribution
- the customer arrival rate can be described by a Poisson
distribution.
(b) Queue Discipline

In describing a queuing system, we must define the manner in which the

queuing customers are arranged for service. The possible queue disciplines
are:
- First-in-first-out(FIFO) or first-come-first-served(FCFS)
- Last-in-first-served(LIFO)
- Service-in-random-order(SIRO)
- Others
- The FIFO queue discipline applies to many situations.

(c) Service Mechanism

The service time can be described by a negative exponential distribution.

The physical layout of the service facilities are:
- Single Channel, Single Phase
- Single Channel, Multiple Phase
- Multiple Channel, Single Phase

(d) Customers Behaviour

The customers generally behave in the following ways in the queue:

Balking Customers get discouraged by seeing the length of the waiting line or
there is no sufficient space for waiting and decide to join the queue.

Reneging Customers after waiting in the queue for some time become impatient
and may leave the system.
Jockeying Customers who move from one queue to another hoping to receive
service more quickly.

13. Managing Waiting times

Good waiting line management consists of the management of actual waiting

time and perceived waiting time.
What is the average arrival rate of customers?
In what order will customers be serviced?
What is the average service rate of the service providers?
How are customer arrival and service times distributed?
How long will customers wait in line before they either leave or lower their
perceptions of service quality?
How can customers be kept in line even longer without lowering their
perceptions of service quality?

14. Waiting-Line Performance Measures

Average queue time, Wq.
Average number of customers in queue, Lq
Average time in system, Ws
Average number in system, Ls
Probability of idle service facility, P0
System Utilization, (rho)
Probability of k units in system, Pn>k
15. Assumptions of the Basic Simple Queuing Model

Arrivals are served on a first come, first served basis (FIFO basis)
Arrivals are independent of preceding arrivals.
Arrival rates are described by the Poisson probability distribution, and
customers come from a very large population.
Service times vary from one customer to another, and are independent of one
and other; the average service time is known.
Service times are described by the negative exponential probability
distribution.
The service rate is greater than the arrival rate.

16. Types of Queuing Models

Simple(M/M/1) - example: Information booth at mall

5

Multi-channel (M/M/S) example: airline ticket counter

Constant Service ( M/D/1) example: automated car wash
Limited population example: equipment repairs in a factory that has 5
machines.

17. Simple (M/M/1) Model Characteristics

Type: Single-channel, single-phase system

Input source: Infinite; no balks, no reneging.
Arrival distribution : Poisson
Queue: Unlimited; single line
Queue Discipline: FIFO (FCFS)
Service Distribution : Negative exponential
Relationship: Independent service & arrival
Service rate > arrival rate
= the mean arrival rate
= the mean service rate

18. Simple (M/M/1) Model Equations

Average number of customers in the system L =

Average waiting time in system W =

Average number of customers in the queue, Lq =

Average waiting time in queue, Wq =

System Utilisation
The probability that no customers are in the queuing system:

P0 = 1

The probability that n customers are in the queuing system:

Pn

P0

Example:
Alex is able to install new components of a computer at an average rate of 3 per hour,
or about 1 every 20 minutes. Customers needing this service arrive at the shop on the
average of 2 per hour. You are required to calculate:
(a) the average number of customers in the system
(b) the average time a customer spends in the system
6

(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)

Average number of customers in the queue.

Average time a customer spent waiting in the queue.
The probability that the service is being used.
The probability that no one is in the system.