Queuing

Introduction

 A common situation occurring in everyday life is that of queuing or

waiting in a line.
 Queues form at bus stops, ticket booths, doctor’s clinics. Bank
counters, traffic lights and so on.
 Queues are also found in industry, in shop where machines wait to
be repaired, where a mechanics wait to receive tools, in a
warehouse.
 Some times customers wait when the total number of customers
requiring service exceeds the number of service facilities, some
situations service facilities stand idle when the total number of
service facilities exceeds the number of customers requiring service.
 Queuing theory can be applied to a wide variety of operational
situation where this imperfect matching between the customers and
service facilities is cause by one’s inability to predict accurately the
arrival and service times of customers.
Essential features or elements of queuing system

 Input source
 It is characterised by
 The size
 When the new customer’s arrival system is restricted by the number of customers already in
the system that input source consider as finite.
 If a new customer’s arrival is independent then the input source is considered as infinite
 The attitude of customers
 If a customer, on arriving at the service system stays in the system until served called
patient customer
 Whereas the customer who wait for a certain time in the queue and leaves the system
without getting service due to some reasons called impatient customer
 Customers even before joining the queue get discouraged by seeing the umber of customers
in the service system called balk.
 Customers after joining the queue, wait for sometime and leave the system due to
intolerable delay called renege.
 Customers who move from one queue to another hoping to receive service more quickly are
said to be jockeying.
 The distribution of arrival process
 The arrival process of customers to the services system is classified into two categories
static and dynamic.
 Queue configuration
 It refers to the number of queues, and their respective lengths. The number of queues
depends upon the layout of the service system. Thus there may be single queue and multiple
queues.
 Queue discipline
 It is the order or manner in which customers from the queue are selected for service.
 First come first served
 Last come first served
 Service in random order
 Priority service
 Preemptive priority service
 Non preemptive priority
 Service mechanism
 It is concerned with the manner in which customers are serviced and leave the service
system. It is characterised by
 The arrangement of service facility
 The distribution of service times
 Server’s behaviour
 Management policies
 Terms
 Line length
 The number of customers in the system who are actually waiting in the line and not being served.
 Queue length
 The line length plus number of customers being served.
 Notations
 n = number of customers in the system(waiting in service)
 Pn = Probability of n customers in the system
 λ= mean customer arrival rate or average number of customers arrivals in the queuing system per
unit time
 μ = mean service rate or average number of customers completing service per unit of time
 λ /μ =ρ = traffic intensity or the expected fraction of time in which server is busy = 1/ λ / 1/ μ
 S = number of service channels
 N = maximum number of customers allowed in the system
 Ls = mean number of customers in the system (waiting and in service)
 Lq = mean number of customers in the queue (queue length)
 Lb = mean length of non-empty queue
 Ws = mean waiting time in the system
 Wq = mean waiting time in the queue
 Wb = mean waiting time of an arrival who has to wait
 Single server, unlimited queue model

 Ls = λ /μ - λ
 Lq = λ2 / μ (μ – λ)
 Lb = μ /μ - λ
 Ws = 1 /μ - λ
 Wq = λ / μ (μ – λ)
 Wb = 1 /μ – λ
 P(n≥k) = (λ /μ )k
 P(n>k) = (λ /μ )k+1
 Variance (flutuation)of queue length = Var(n) = λ μ /(μ – λ)2
Multiple servers, unlimited queue model

 Po =
 Ls = Lq + λ /μ
 Lq =1/s-1! (λ / μ)s λμ /(sμ – λ)2 X po
 Ws = Wq + 1 /μ
 Wq = Lq / λ
 Probability that a customer has to wait P(n≥s) =
1/s! (λ / μ)s sμ /(sμ – λ) X po
 The fraction of time server busy = λ /sμ
 Idle time = 1- λ /sμ
 Problem 1

A super market has 2 girls ringing up sales at

counters if the service time for each customer is
exponential with mean 4 minutes and if people
arrived in a poison fashion at the rate of 10 an hour
then calculate
 Probability of having to wait for service
 Expected % of idle time for each girl
 If a customer has to wait, what is the expected length of his
waiting time
 Problem 2

 A tax consulting firm has two service stations and four

counters in its office to receive people who have problems and
complaints about their income, wealth and sales taxes.
Arrivals average 80 persons in an 8 hours day. Each tax
advisors spends an irregular amount of time serving the
arrivals which have been found to have an exponential
distribution. The average service time is 20 minutes. Calculate
the average number of customers in the system, average
number of customers waiting to be serviced, average time a
customer spends in the system, and average waiting time for a
customer. Calculate how many hours each week does a tax
adviser spend performing his job. What is the probability that
a customer has to wait before he gets service? What is the
expected number of idle tax advisors at any specified time?