Chapter 12

Managing Waiting
Lines
• After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
• Describe the economics of waiting lines using examples.
• Describe how queues form.
• Apply Maister’s two “laws of service.”
• Describe the psychology of waiting components, and
suggest strategies to deal with each.
• Describe the four principles of waiting line management
with examples.
• Describe the essential features of a queuing system.
• Describe the relationship between a negative exponential
distribution of time between arrivals and a Poisson
distribution of arrival rates.
• While waiting can have a number of economic interpretations, its true
cost is always difficult to determine.
• For this reason, the trade-off between the cost of waiting and the cost of
providing service seldom is made explicit, yet service providers must
consider the physical, behavioral, and economic aspects of the
consumer waiting experience in their decision making.
• Chapter Preview
• Our understanding of waiting lines begins with a discussion of the
economic considerations from both a provider and customer perspective
followed by a discussion of how queues form.
• We shall discover that the perception of waiting often is more important
to the customer than the actual time spent waiting, suggesting that
innovative ways should be found to reduce the negative aspects of
waiting.
• Finally, the essential features of a queuing system are described and
queuing terminology is defined.
The Economics of Waiting
• The economic cost of waiting can be viewed from two perspectives.
• For a firm, the cost of keeping an employee (i.e., an internal customer)
waiting may be measured by unproductive wages.
• For external customers, the cost of waiting is the forgone alternative use
of that time.
• Added to this are the costs of boredom, anxiety, and other psychological
distresses.
• In a competitive market, excessive waiting—or even the expectation of
long waits— can lead to lost sales. How often have you driven by a
filling station, observed many cars lined up at the pumps, and then
decided not to stop?
• One strategy to avoid lost sales is to conceal the queue from arriving
customers.
• In the case of restaurants, this often is achieved by diverting people into
the bar, a tactic that frequently results in increased sales.
• Amusement parks such as Disneyland require people to pay for their
tickets outside the park, where they are unable to observe the waiting
lines inside.
• The consumer can be considered a resource with the
potential to participate in the service process.
• For example, a patient who is waiting for a doctor can be
asked to complete a medical history record and thereby save
valuable physician time (i.e., service capacity).
• The waiting period also can be used to educate the person
about good health habits, which can be achieved by making
health publications or filmstrips available.
• As another example, restaurants are quite innovative in their
approaches to engaging the customer directly in providing
the service.
• After giving your order to a waiter in many restaurants, you
are asked to go to the salad bar and prepare your own salad,
which you eat while the cook prepares your meal.
• Consumer waiting may be viewed as a contribution to
productivity by permitting greater utilization of limited
capacity.
• The situation of customers waiting in line for a service is
analogous to the work-in-process inventory for a
manufacturing firm.
• The service firm actually is inventorying customers to
increase the overall efficiency of the process.
• In service systems, higher utilization of facilities is
purchased at the price of customer waiting.
• Prominent examples can be found in public services such as
post offices, medical clinics, and welfare offices, where
high utilization is achieved with long queues.
 Queuing Systems
• A queue is a line of waiting customers who require service from one or
more servers.
• The queue need not be a physical line of individuals in front of a server.
• It might be a person being placed on “hold” by a telephone operator.
• Servers typically are considered to be individual stations where
customers receive service.
1. Servers need not be limited to serving one customer at a time.
Transportation systems such as buses, airplanes, and elevators are
bulk services.
2. The consumer need not always travel to the service facility; in
some systems, the server actually comes to the consumer. This
approach is illustrated by urban services such as fire and police
protection as well as by ambulance service.
• In any service system, a queue forms whenever current demand exceeds
the existing capacity to serve.
• This occurs when servers are so busy that arriving consumers cannot
receive immediate service.
 The Psychology of Waiting
• If waiting is such an integral and ordinary part of our lives, why
does it cause us so much grief ? David H. Maister offers some
interesting perspectives on this subject.
• He suggests two “Laws of Service.”
• The first deals with the customer’s expectations versus his or her
perceptions.
• If a customer receives better service than he or she expects, then
the customer departs a happy, satisfied person, and the service
may benefit from a trickledown effect (i.e., the happy customer
will tell friends about the good service).
• Note, however, that the trickle-down effect can work both ways:
a service can earn a bad reputation in the same manner a service
that requires its customers to wait would be advised to make that
period a pleasant experience.
• To do the “impossible”—to make waiting at least tolerable and,
at best, pleasant and productive.
That Old Empty Feeling
– Just as “nature abhors a vacuum,” people dislike “empty
time.” Empty, or unoccupied, time feels awful.
– The challenge to the service organization is obvious: fill
this time in a positive way.
– There are innumerable other ways to fill time: reading
matter, television monitors, live entertainment, posters,
artwork, toys to occupy children, and cookies and pots
of coffee.
– The diversions are limited only by management’s
imagination and desire to serve the customer effectively.
A Foot in the Door
– Maister points out that “service-related” diversions
themselves, such as handing out menus to waiting diners
or medical history forms to waiting patients, “convey a
sense that service has started.”
 – One’s level of anxiety subsides considerably once
service has started.
– In fact, people generally can tolerate longer waits, within
reason, if they feel service has begun better than they
can tolerate such waits if service has not even started.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
– There are many anxieties at work before service begins.
– Have I been forgotten? Did you get my order? This line
doesn’t seem to be moving; will I ever get served?
– Telling the customer how long he or she will have to
wait is sufficient reassurance that the wait at some point
will end.
– Signs can serve this purpose as well.
Excuse Me, but I Was Next
– Uncertain and unexplained waits create anxieties and, as
noted above, occasionally some resentment in
customers.
– A simple strategy for avoiding violations of the first-
come, first-served (FCFS) queuing policy is the take-a-
number arrangement.
– The number currently being served may be displayed so
that the new customer can see how long the wait will be.
– With this simple measure, management has relieved the
customer’s anxiety over the length of the wait—and the
possibility of being treated unfairly.
– As an ancillary benefit, it also encourages “impulse
buying” through allowing the customer to wander about
the shop instead of needing to protect a place in line.
– Another simple strategy for fostering FCFS service when
there are multiple servers is use of a single queue.
– Banks, post offices, and airline check-in counters
commonly employ this technique.
– A customer who enters one of these facilities joins the back
of the line; the first person in line is served by the next
available server.
– Anxiety is relieved, because there is no fear that later
arrivals will “slip” ahead of their rightful place.
• Not all services lend themselves to such a
straightforward prioritization, however.
• Police service is one example; for obvious reasons,
an officer on the way to a call about a “noisy dog
next door” will change priorities when told to
respond to a “robbery-in progress.”
• In this case, the dispatcher can explaining the department’s
response policy and providing the caller with a reasonable
expectation of when an officer will arrive.
• Other services may wish to give preferential treatment to
special customers.
• Consider the express check-in for “high rollers” at Las
Vegas hotels, or for first-class passengers at airline check-in
counters.
• A management sensitive to the concerns of all its customers
will take measures to avoid an image of obvious
discrimination.
• In the example just mentioned, one solution might be to
“conceal” the preferential treatment by locating it in an area
that is separate from the regular service line.
 Principles of Waiting Line Management
• The act of waiting—either in person or on the phone—“has a
disproportionately high impact” on customers, says David Maister, a
Boston consultant who has studied the psychology of waiting.
• “The wait can destroy an otherwise perfect service experience.”
Animate
• Some contend that a wait isn’t a wait if it’s fun.
• At Disneyland and Walt Disney World, the waits—which can be up to
90 minutes long—are planned along with the attractions themselves.
• Visitors waiting for rides that board continuously pass animated
displays that are designed to be viewed as people walk along.
• Waits for theater shows include such attractions as singers and
handicraft displays aimed at audiences that will be waiting in one place
as long as 30 minutes.
• Indeed, the waits themselves are called “preshows.”
• Says Norman Doerges, executive vice president of Disneyland, “that’s
what makes the time pass, it’s the entertainment.”
• At the Omni Park Central Hotel in New York, when a line exceeds six
people, assistant managers are dispatched to the hotel restaurant to bring
out orange and grapefruit juice to serve to the people in line.
Discriminate
• “The key thing is not just moving people out of the line,” says Mr.
James at Avis.
• “The key is who you move out of the line.”
• “Those businesses that want to serve priority customers faster are best
advised to do it out of sight of the regular customers.”
• He cites some airlines that locate first-class check-in counters away
from the economy counters.
• “You don’t want to rub the noses of the economy passengers in it.”
Automate
• While assembly-line techniques can accelerate
manufacturing operations, they often slow the delivery of
services.
• “The most efficient way to do a job is to have one person do
it.”
• So Employers Health Insurance, Green Bay, Wis., has
assembled a complex computer database of scripts that
employees can read to customers on the telephone.
• “We know that 75% of the calls we get in are standard
questions,” says Sterling L. Phaklides, an assistant vice
president in the claims division.
• But callers who ask questions that aren’t covered in the
scripts can be referred to specialists at any point.
Obfuscate
• Mr. Maister says the perceived wait is often more important
than the actual wait.
• In a paper on the psychology of waiting, he notes that some
restaurants deliberately announce longer waiting times, thus
pleasing customers when the wait is actually shorter.
• At Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., lines snake around
corners, Mr. Maister says.
• Thus people focus more on how fast the line is moving than
on how long the line is.
• Disneyland says its aim isn’t to deceive. It posts waiting
times at the start of each line.
• “A big danger in disguising a line is that people don’t know
what they are getting into,” says Mr. Doerges. “If you do it
without proper preparation, people get frustrated.”
• In many cases, speed of delivery is viewed as a
competitive advantage in the marketplace.
• For example, many hotels today will total your bill
and slide it under your room door during the last
night of your stay, thereby achieving “zero waiting
time” at the check-out counter.
• Customers typically arrive at random and place
immediate demands on the available service.
• If service capacity is fully utilized at the time of his
or her arrival, then the customer is expected to wait
patiently in line.
• Varying arrival rates and service time requirements
result in the formation of queues (i.e., lines of
customers waiting their turn for service).
 Essential Features of Queuing Systems
• Services obtain customers from a calling population .
• The rate at which they arrive is determined by the arrival process.
• If servers are idle, then the customer is immediately attended; otherwise,
the customer is diverted to a queue, which can have various
configurations.
• At this point, some customers may balk when confronted with a long or
slowmoving waiting line and seek service elsewhere.
• Other customers, after joining the queue, may consider the delay to be
intolerable, and so they renege, which means that they leave the line
before service is rendered.
• When a server does become available, a customer then is selected from
the queue, and service begins.
• The policy governing the selection is known as the queue discipline .
• The service facility may consist of no servers (i.e., self-
service), one or more servers, or complex arrangements of
servers in series or in parallel.
• After the service has been rendered, the customer departs
the facility.
• At that time, the customer may either rejoin the calling
population for future return or exit with no intention of
returning.
Calling Population
• The calling population need not be homogeneous; it may
consist of several subpopulations.
• For example, arrivals at an outpatient clinic can be divided
into walk-in patients, patients with appointments, and
emergency patients.
• Each class of patient will place different demands on
services, but more important, the waiting expectations of
each will differ significantly.
• In some queuing systems, the source of calls may be limited
to a finite number of people.
• In this case, the probability of future arrivals depends on the
number of persons who currently are in the system seeking
service.
• For example, consider the demands on an office copier by a
staff of three secretaries.
• For instance, the probability of a future arrival becomes
zero once the third secretary joins the copier queue.
• Unless the population is quite small, however, an
assumption of independent arrivals or infinite population
usually suffices.
• Arrival Process
• Any analysis of a service system must begin with a
complete understanding of the temporal and spatial
distribution of the demand for that service.
• Typically, data are collected by recording the actual times
of arrivals.
• These data then are used to calculate interarrival times.
• Many empirical studies indicate that the distribution of
interarrival times will be exponential, and the shape of
the curve in Figure 12.3 is typical of the exponential
distribution.
• Note the high frequency at the origin and the long tail
that tapers off to the right.
• The exponential distribution also can be recognized by
noting that both the mean and the standard deviation are
theoretically equal ( μ = 2.4 and σ = 2.6 for Figure 12.3 ).
The exponential distribution has a continuous
probability density function of the form
• Equation (2) gives the probability that the time between arrivals will be
t or less.
• Note that is the inverse of the mean time between arrivals.
• Thus, for Figure 12.3 , the mean time between arrivals is 2.4 minutes,
which implies that λ is 1/2.4 = 0.4167 arrival per minute (i.e., an
average rate of 25 patients per hour).
• Substituting 0.4167 for λ, the exponential distribution for the data
displayed in Figure 12.3 is
• The cumulative distribution above can be
used to find the probability that if a patient
has already arrived; another will arrive in the
next 5 minutes.
• We simply substitute 5 for t, and so

• Thus, there is an 87.6 percent chance that

another patient will arrive in the next 5
minute interval.
• Another distribution, known as the Poisson
distribution , has a unique relationship to the
exponential distribution.
• The Poisson distribution is a discrete
probability function of the form
•
• The Poisson distribution gives the probability of n
arrivals during the time interval t.
• For the data of Figure 12.3 , substituting for λ = 25
and t = 1, an equivalent description of the arrival
process is

• This gives the probability of 0, 1, 2, . . . patients

arriving during any 1-hour interval.
• Note that we have taken the option of converting λ =
0.4167 arrival per minute to λ = 25 arrivals per hour.
• This function can be used to calculate the interesting
probability that no patients will arrive during a 1-
hour interval by substituting 0 for n as shown below:

• Figure 12.4 shows the relationship between the

Poisson distribution (i.e., arrivals per hour) and the
exponential distribution (i.e., minutes between
arrivals).
• An exponential distribution of interarrival times with
a mean of 2.4 minutes is equivalent to a Poisson
distribution of the number of arrivals per hour with a
mean of 25 (i.e., 60/2.4).
FIGURE 12.3 Distribution of Patient Interarrival
Times for a University Health Clinic
FIGURE 12.8 Classification of Arrival Process
• The demand rate during the unit of time should be
stationary with respect to time (i.e., lambda [ λ ] is a
constant); otherwise, the underlying fluctuations in demand
rate as a function of time will not be accounted for.
• Our discussion has focused on the frequency of demand as
a function of time, but the spatial distribution of demand
also may vary.
• This is particularly true of emergency ambulance demand in
an urban area, which has a spatial shift in demand resulting
from the temporary movements of population from
residential areas to commercial and industrial areas during
working hours.