Alexandria Engineering Journal (2020) 59, 829–838

H O S T E D BY
Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

www.elsevier.com/locate/aej
www.sciencedirect.com

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Survey-based calibration of a parking entry as a

single-server mathematical queuing model: A case
study
Mounir Mahmoud Moghazy Abdel-Aal

Transportation Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt

Received 14 November 2019; revised 3 February 2020; accepted 9 February 2020

Available online 29 February 2020

KEYWORDS Abstract Traffic congestion is observed around shopping malls, mostly, due to the long queue
Queue system; at the parking entry gates. The queuing theory is an operation research technique that mathe-
Parking entry; matically models the queuing systems consisting of randomly arriving costumers to receive ser-
Stochastic and deterministic vice and then depart such as the parking entry gates. For a single-server mathematical queuing
queuing process; model, the inter-arrival time is usually assumed to be negative exponentially distributed (Poisson
Exponential distribution; process). Mostly, the service times are assumed to be either similar to inter-arrival, M/M/1, or
Poisson distribution constant, M/D/1; neither assumptions is correct in terms of producing performance measures
that conform with the reality. However, the M/D/1 model seems to perform more closely. This
paper proposes an approach to apply the mathematical queuing model for such system more
efficiently. Essentially, service time is calibrated to the best fitting distribution based on the data
collected from major shopping malls in Alexandria and Giza in 2016 and 2017; respectively. The
calibration proves that the service time is normally distributed. The application of the M/D/1
using the mean time of the calibrated normal distribution as the constant service time is then
tested. The resulted performance measures show a significant conformity with the performance
measures of the field data.
Ó 2020 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction primary importance since it affects directly the external traffic

[15].
People who travel by automobile require parking at their des- The queuing theory is an operational research technique
tinations. Traffic congestion is noticed on the road network that models systems allowing queue, calculates its perfor-
around shopping malls area; mostly because of the queue line mances and determines its properties in order to help man-
at the parking entry gates. Queues at parking entry are of agers in decision making [9]. The real value of a model
would become apparent as to evaluate the effect of proposed
E-mail address: abdelaal61@yahoo.com
changes in the system; it is generally more efficient to use a
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
mathematical model to predict the consequences. Usually,
University. the arrival process is considered to be a renewable process,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2020.02.016
1110-0168 Ó 2020 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
830
which means that the times between arrivals are independent
random variables [12]. The easiest inter-arrival time distribu-
tion to work with is the negative exponential distribution,
which is fully characterized by a single parameter, the mean
service rate.
The history of queuing theory goes back more than
100 years. A queuing system consists of ‘‘customers” arriving
at random times to some facility where they receive service
of some kind and then depart [7]. The earliest techniques of
analysis in queuing theory was laid by Erlang [11], father of
queuing theory, in the early decades of the twentieth century.
He is given credit for mathematically introducing the Poisson
process to congestion theory.
In general, and specially with the assumption that the arri-
val process is Poisson, the arrival rate is usually represented by
the Greek lower case (k) [12]. The service process is often
regarded as being similar to the arrival process, but there are
important differences. Strictly, it is not a stochastic process,
because it is interrupted by the idle periods when there are
no customers present. The usual notation for a service rate is
a Greek lower case (m) [12].
Results and theoretical formulations are established for (M/
M/c) queue models; the first letter ‘‘M” specifies the inter-
arrival time distribution, the second ‘‘M” specifies the service
time distribution; both of them are assumed to be of exponen-
tial distribution which means that both arrival rate and service
rate are Poisson. The third letter specifies the number of ser-
vers [9]
The queue of the model M/M/1 (Poisson arrival, Poisson
service, single server) is one of the earliest systems to be ana-
lyzed [1]. Afterwards, Erlang [11] solved both the M/D/1 queu-
ing model and M/D/c queuing model. The letter ‘‘D” specifies
that the service time is deterministic or constant.
Regardless of mathematical formulation, the analytical
models depend on significant assumptions on the distribution
of arrival and service rates and on the type of dispatching dis-
ciplines [2]. The queue formed at paid parking entry has a
weak model distribution classification; no one had ensure that
it’s totally follow (M/M/1) model (Poisson random arrival/
Poisson random service) or (M/D/1) model (random arrival/
deterministic service). Neither one is accurate, as the system
is too complicated. Rarely, will you encounter in real life a sit-
uation where the negative exponential assumptions can be rig-
orously defended, especially for service time. Also, service time
can’t be logically assumed constant. Actually, however, the
proper question to ask is not how good the assumptions are,
but how good the results are.
Recently, more than one application of queuing theory
were performed to empirically solve a real life parking prob-
lems. In most cases, the standard mathematical models were
used in conjunction with a simulation model in an attempt
to overcome the drawback of the mathematical models of
not producing performance measures that conform with reality
[10].
The purpose of this paper is to explore ways to improve
the performance of the mathematical queuing models,
which is easier than the simulation models, more effectively
and, maybe, more efficiently. This research adopts the prin-
ciple of that getting more representative results is far more
of a goal than using the more theoretically correct
assumptions.
M.M.M. Abdel-Aal
2. Queuing model fundamental relations
The performance measures that affect the queue study are aver-
age delay per vehicle ‘‘Wq”, average queue length ‘‘Lq”. Based
on the departure rate and arrival rate pair data, the delay of
every individual vehicle can be obtained. Fig. 1 shows the Cumu-
lative input-output queuing diagram (Newell Curve) and by
using which, it is possible to find the delay for every individual
vehicle: the delay of the ith vehicle is time of departure - time of
arrival (T2-T1). Total delay is the sum of the delays of each vehi-
cle, which is the area in the triangle between the arrival and
departure curves [6]. Similarly, the queue length at any time is
number of car arriving - number of car departing (V2-V1).
2.1. Queuing theory principles
2.1.1. Poisson arrival distribution
If events (vehicle arrivals) occur randomly and independently,
at an average rate, then the count of vehicle arrivals per unit
time will conform to a Poisson distribution and the form of
occurrence is described as a Poisson process. The distribution
of the length of intervals between events (vehicle inter-arrival)
in a Poisson process is an exponential distribution [5]. The
Poisson probability density function (PDF) is given in Eqn 1
as follows [8,14]:
kx ek
fðxÞ ¼ 8x  0; k > 0 ð1Þ
x!
where
x: number of vehicle arrivals per unit time
k: average vehicle arrival rate
2.1.2. Exponential Inter-Arrival distribution
The exponential distribution is defined as the distribution of
waiting times (vehicle inter-arrivals) in a Poisson process. If
events (vehicle arrivals) are occurring at random at a constant
rate ‘‘k” per unit time and x is the time to the next event (ve-
hicle inter-arrival), then the PDF of the exponential distribu-
tion is given in Eqn 2 [5]:
fðxÞ ¼ kekx 8x  0; k > 0 ð2Þ
where
x: vehicle inter-arrival time
1=k: average vehicle inter-arrival time
2.2. The variety of queuing models
A wide variety of queuing models may be applied in operations
management. Three of the most widely used models (M/M/s,
M/M/1&M/D/1) are introduced.
2.2.1. Multi-server queuing systems - M/M/s
The M/M/s model is one of the most commonly used to ana-
lyze the queuing problem in different queuing systems. This
model computes average wait times and queue lengths, given
arrival rates, number of servers, and service rates.
The queue length is given in Eqn 3 as follows [2]:
qsþ1
Lq ¼ Po ð3Þ
ðs  1Þ!ðs  qÞ2
Survey-based calibration of a parking entry as a single-server mathematical queuing model 831

Fig. 1 The Cumulative Inputs and Outputs Queuing Diagram (Newell Curve).

where the magnitude of (2q 2

); i.e., between 50 and 100%, depending
l: mean service rate per busy server on traffic intensity, for in-system performance measure.
k: mean arrival rate
s: number of parallel servers 3. Case study
q: utilization factor for the system k\l (traffic intensity =
arrival rate/service rate) 3.1. San Stefano mall parking - Alexandria
Po: probability of the system being empty (that is, the
service unit is idle) which is given in Eqn 4:
San-Stefano Grand Plaza mall is one of the best shopping cen-
Po ¼ ð1  qÞ ¼ ð1  ðk lÞÞ ð4Þ ters in Alexandria. The San Stefano project covers a total area
of 30,000 m2, with a 170-meter seafront.
2.2.2. Single-Server queuing systems –(M/M/1 &M/D/1) The structure of the shopping mall consists of four levels
which consist of 180 retail outlets, 880 apartments. The site
All the formulations used in calculating the (M/M/1 & M/D/1)
also incorporates 12,000 m2 of office space, ten cinemas with
models’ performance measures are collected and tabulated in
a capacity to seat 1474 people and parking for 1100 cars.
Table 1 in the form of a comparison between them [3,4,11] .
San-Stefano parking consists of three under-ground floors.
All equations are written in the terms of (m, ʎ) and in terms
The parking has two entry and exit gates, one at El Kazeno
of (q).
street and the other at Mohamed Ahmed Afify street. Fig. 2
It is worth noting that the average waiting time and queue
illustrates the location of the parking gates and the roads
length for M/D/1 is always less than those for M/M/1 in the
around it.
magnitude of 50% for in-queue performance measure and in
From earlier survey we found that the most occupied time
is the evening weekend days that’s the reason for choosing Fri-
day. To collect the required data, a video recording was done
Table 1 Comparison between (M/M/1 & M/D/1) Models by a hand cam at the tram-way intersection with El Kazeno
Equations. street for one hour from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM in Friday 23 July
2016. The video was watched and the survey data were then
Performance Measure M/M/1 M/D/1
summarized in tabular and graphical form.
Arrival rate distribution is assumed to be a Poisson arrival
Wq (average waiting time per vehicle Wq ¼ lð1q
q
Þ Wq ¼ 2lð1q
q
Þ process. Fig. 3 shows the calibration of arrival rates estab-
in queue-excluding service time)
lished from collected data & Poisson distribution calculated
by using Eq. (1). The Poisson parameter (average arrival rate)
Ws (average waiting time per vehicle in Ws ¼ lð1q
1
Þ Ws ¼ 2l2q
ð1qÞ
system) k = 3.195 veh./min. (0.0533 veh./sec.) was calculated from col-
lected data. It is easy to see that the collected data relatively
Lq (average waiting time spent in 2
Lq ¼ 1 q q Lq ¼ 2ð1q
q 2 conform to Poisson distribution in many points. In fact, it is
Þ
queue-excluding vehicles being a good calibration.
served) The inter-arrival time is the time between each arrival into
the system and the next arrival. Fig. 4 shows the inter-arrival
Ls (average waiting time spent in Ls ¼ 1 q q Ls ¼ q2ðð1q
2qÞ
time chart plotted from collected data compared with a formal
Þ
queue) exponential distribution calculated by using Eq. (2) with aver-
age inter-arrival 1=k = 18.780 s. and proves the fact that when
832 M.M.M. Abdel-Aal

Fig. 2 San Stefano Mall Location.

Calibrang Avreage Arrival Rate & Poisson Distribuon the arrival rate has a Poisson distribution the inter-arrival rate
0.35 is an exponential distribution.
0.3
Fig. 5 shows the calibration of service rates established
Probibility Occurence

Collected Data from collected data & Poisson distribution calculated by using
0.25 Eq. (1) The Poisson parameter (average service rate) l = 7.300
Poisson (λ=3.195)
0.2 veh./min. (0.1217 veh./sec.) was calculated from collected data.
0.15
It is easy to see that the collected data doesn’t, even slightly,
conform to Poisson distribution. As mentioned before the
0.1
assumption that the service rate follows a Poisson distribution
0.05 is not true due to the system idle times which accounts, in the
0
case of San Stefano Mall, for about 56%. Clearly, it is an inva-
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 lid calibration. In fact, l, is calculated based on the actual ser-
Arrival Rate (Veh/Minute) vice times excluding idle times, while the observed service rates
are based on the total times including the idle times.
Fig. 3 Calibrating Arrival Rate and Poisson Distribution (San
Stefano mall).

Calibrang Inter-arrival Time & Negave Exponenal Calibrang Service Rate & Poisson Distribuon
0.18 0.4
Probability occurence

0.16 0.35
Probibility Occurence

0.14 Collected Data

0.3
0.12 Collected Data Poisson (μ=7.300)
0.25
0.1
Negave Exponenal (λ =0.0533) 0.2
0.08
0.15
0.06
0.04 0.1
0.02 0.05
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Inter-arrival Time (Seconds) Service Rate (Veh/Minute)

Fig. 4 Calibrating Inter-arrival Time and Exponential Distribu- Fig. 5 Calibrating Service Rate and Poisson Distribution (San
tion (San Stefano mall). Stefano mall).
Survey-based calibration of a parking entry as a single-server mathematical queuing model
Calibrang Service Time & Negave Exponenal
0.1800
Probibility Occurence
0.1600
0.1400 Collected Data
0.1200
Negave Exponenal (μ=0.1217)
0.1000
0.0800
0.0600
0.0400
0.0200
0.0000
1 6 11
Service Time (Seconds))
Fig. 6 Calibrating Service Time and Exponential Distribution
(San Stefano mall).
Fig. 6 shows the calibration between service time estab-
lished from the survey data and the exponential distribution
calculated by using Eq. (2) with average service time
1=l = 8.219 s. Although, both l and observed service times
are based on actual data, it is clear that the service time doesn’t
follow negative exponential distribution.
The goodness of fit of the arrival and service distributions
will be further discussed in details in Section 4.1.
The collected data was analyzed and the survey statistics
are tabulated in Table 2. Survey results, for San Stefano mall,
show that the service time is lower than the inter-arrival time,
consequently the service rate is higher than the arrival rate.
The total arrived vehicles are 189 veh./hour, the service time
is 8.219 s. for each vehicle. To unify units ʎ = 3.195 veh./min.
and m = 60/8.219 = 7.3 veh./min.
3.2. Hyper-one mall parking – Giza
Hyper one is a mega mall in Sheikh Zayed, it is located at the
intersection between extension of 26th of July street and
Sheikh Zayed entrance. The mall includes a mega market
and more than 20 brands.
Hyper one parking consists of 1 floor with three entrances
and three exits without any fees. Two entrances and two exits
on El Nozha street (the entrance of sheikh Zayed), and one
entrance and one exit on the service road of extension of 26
of July Street. Fig. 7 illustrates the location of the parking
gates and the roads around it.
It was observed that the mall has two peak hours, the first
from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm because of lunch, and the second
from 8:00 to 9:00 because of shopping. In order to study the
parking process, survey was undertaken for one hour at
between 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Monday 25 December
2017 at the northern entrance on El Nozha street. Similar to
San Stefano case, the survey data of Hyper One mall were then
summarized in tabular and graphical form.
Fig. 8 shows the calibration of arrival rates established
from collected data & Poisson distribution calculated by using
Eq. (1) The Poisson parameter (average arrival rate) k = 3.252
veh./min. (0.0542 veh./sec.) was calculated from collected data.
Again, it is easy to see that the collected data conform to Pois-
son distribution in many points.
Fig. 9 shows the Inter-arrival time chart plotted from col-
lected data compared with a formal exponential distribution
833
Table 2 Survey Statistics for San Stefano mall.
Attribute Symbol Value
Sample size n 189
Average arrival rate (veh./min.) ʎ 3.195
(0.0533 veh/sec)
Average inter-arrival time (sec.) 1/ʎ 18.779
Average service rate (veh./min.) l 7.300
(0.1217 veh/sec)
Average service time (sec.) 1/l 8.219
Average waiting time per vehicle in Wq 4.162
queue (sec.)
16 21
Average waiting time per vehicle in Ws 12.381
system (sec.)
Average number of vehicle in queue Lq 0.221
(veh.)
Average number of vehicle in system Ls 0.658
(veh.)
calculated by using Eq. (2) with average inter-arrival
1=k = 18.451 s. This calibration also proves the fact that when
the arrival rate has a Poisson distribution the inter-arrival rate
will be an exponential distribution.
Fig. 10 shows the calibration of service rates established
from collected data & Poisson distribution calculated by using
Eq. (1) The Poisson parameter (average service rate) l = 4.7
55 veh./min. (0.0793 veh./sec.) was calculated from collected
data. It is easy to see that the collected data doesn’t completely
conform to Poisson distribution. It is worth noting that, again,
the service rate does not follow a Poisson distribution due to
the system idle times which accounts, in the case of Hyper
One Mall, for about 31%. Clearly, it isn’t completely a valid
calibration. Again, l, is calculated based on the actual service
times excluding idle times, while the observed service rates are
based on the total times including the idle times.
Fig. 11 shows the calibration between service time estab-
lished from the survey data and the exponential distribution
calculated by using Eq. (2) with average service time
1=l = 12.617 s. It is clear that the service time doesn’t follow
negative exponential distribution, even though, the actual data
is used to estimate both l and observed service times
Again, the goodness of fit of the arrival and service distribu-
tions will be further discussed in Section 4.1.
The collected data was analyzed and the survey statistics
are tabulated in Table 3. Similarly, for Hyper One Mall, the
total arrived vehicles are 222 veh./hour, the service time is
12.617 s for each vehicle. To unify units ʎ = 3.252 veh./min.
and m = 60/12.617 = 4.755 veh./min.
4. Result analysis
4.1. Goodness of fit for arrival and service distributions
To test the closeness between the observed distribution (C1)
and the assumed distribution (C2), Incidence Ratio (IR) prin-
ciple was introduced. The IR between the two curves is mea-
sured by the ratio between the area covered by both
distributions (intersection) to all area covered by either or both
of the two distributions (Union). The IR can be expressed con-
ceptually in Eqn 10 a follows:
834 M.M.M. Abdel-Aal

Fig. 7 Hyper One Mall Location.

Calibrang Arrival Rate & Poisson Distribuon Calibrang Service Rate & Poisson Distribuon
0.300 0.300
Probability Occurance
Probability Occurance

0.250 0.250
Poisson (λ=3.252) Collected Data
0.200
0.200 Poisson (μ=4.755)
Collected Data
0.150
0.150
0.100
0.100
0.050
0.050 0.000
0 2 4 6 8 10
0.000
0 2 4 6 8 10 Service Rate (Vehicle/Minutes)
Arrival Rate (Vehicle/Minutes)
Fig. 10 Calibrating Service Rate and Poisson Distribution
Fig. 8 Calibrating Arrival Rate and Poisson Distribution (Hyper One mall).
(Hyper One mall).

Calibrang Service Time & Negave Exponenal

0.120
Probability Occurance

0.100
Collected Data
0.080

0.060 Negave Exponenal

(μ=0.0793)
0.040

0.020

0.000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Service Time (Seconds)

Fig. 9 Calibrating Inter-arrival Time and Exponential Distribu- Fig. 11 Calibrating Service Time and Exponential Distribution
tion (Hyper One mall). (Hyper One mall).
Survey-based calibration of a parking entry as a single-server mathematical queuing model 835

and, consequently, rate, might have improved its goodness of

Table 3 Survey Statistics for Hyper One mall.
fit with the assumed distribution.
Attribute Symbol Value
4.2. Comparison between survey and calculation
Sample Size n 222
Average arrival rate (veh./min.) ʎ 3.252
(0.0542 veh/sec) Collected data calibration is necessary to ensure the accuracy
Average inter-arrival time (sec.) 1/ʎ 18.451 of the assumed model. From the study area survey, important
Average service rate (veh./min.) l 4.755 data were collected to mathematically calculate the four main
(0.0793 veh/sec) queue performance measures. Equations shown in Table 1 are
Average service time (sec.) 1/l 12.617 used to calculate the performance measures in M/M/1 & M/
Average waiting time per vehicle in Wq 8.824 D/1 queue models. Table 5 shows the calculated performance
queue (sec.)
measures for both models against the observed corresponding
Average waiting time per vehicle in Ws 21.442
values (surveyed) for San Stefano mall parking. The table also
system (sec.)
Average number of vehicles in the Lq 0.479 shows the corresponding model relative errors in comparison
queue (veh.) with the observed values.
Average number of vehicles in the Ls 1.164 As expected, the single queue and one server case varies in
system (veh.) performance measres from one model to another. In fact, the
observed survey data seems to be adhering to the result of
.
M/D/1 model. This is specially clear for both average waiting
time in system (Ws ) and average number of vehicle waiting in
C1 \ C2 system (Ls ) with Relative Error 8% for both cases versus
IR ¼ ð5Þ 18% for M/M/1 model. Although the difference is relatively
C1 [ C2
bigger for the in-queue performance measures (Wq , Lq ) the
It is clear that the IR measure ranges between 0.0 and 1.0; the
Relative Error is 23% for both cases versus 54% for M/
larger the measure, the better the test is. Similar to the regression
M/1 model. This makes a better sense since the service time
R2 , with IR under 0.5, it is not an acceptable fit; yet, it is consid- is not following exactly exponential distribution.
ered good fit with IR greater than 0.6. All of the four distribu- Table 6 shows the calculated performance measures for
tions assumed for arrival rate, inter-arrival time, service rate both M/M/1 & M/D/1 queue models against the observed cor-
and service time were tested using this measure. Obviously, the responding values (surveyed) for Hyper One mall parking.
test was performed for both of mall parking lots. Unlike San Stefano mall parking, the observed survey data is
Table 4 shows the results of these tests. It is clear that the adhering to neither of the assumed models. In fact, both the
arrival rate, for both locations does follow Poisson distribution average waiting time and queue length seem to be considerably
with a good fit. The inter-arrival time, for both locations, fol- lower than both of the models. Yet, the observed survey data is
low Negative Exponential distribution with an acceptable to still a lot closer to M/D/1. The Relative error has a range
good fit. On the other hand, the service time, for both loca- between 22% and 55% for M/D/1 compared to a range
tions, does not follow Negative Exponential distribution and between 86% and 210% for M/M/1.
the service rate, for San Stefano location, does not follow Pois-
son distribution as well. However, the service rate, for Hyper 4.3. Calibration of M/D/1 service time
one location, lies in the grey area as it seems to follow Poisson
distribution with an acceptable fit. Although contradictory to
expected, the less idle time in this case, which is the main rea- The surveyed data shows that the arrival rate is, in fact, a Pois-
son of dismissing the nature of randomness for the service time son distribution and that the inter-arrival time follows negative

Table 4 Goodness of Fit Test (Incidence Ratio) of the Four Distributions.

Attribute Assumed Distribution Incidence Ratio Goodness of fit
San Stefano Hyper One San Stefano Hyper One
Arrival rate Poisson 0.71 0.78 Good Good
Inter-arrival time Negative Exponential 0.50 0.59 Acceptable Acceptable
Service Rate Poisson 0.15 0.55 Not Acceptable Acceptable
Service time Negative Exponential 0.41 0.42 Not Acceptable Not Acceptable

Table 5 Comparison Between M/M/1, M/D/1 Models and Their Relative Errors for San Stefano mall.
Performance Measure Observed (Survey) Calculated Relative Error
M/M/1 M/D/1 M/M/1 M/D/1
Wq 4.162 6.397 3.199 0.54 0.23
Ws 12.381 14.616 11.418 0.18 0.08
Lq 0.221 0.341 0.170 0.54 0.23
Ls 0.658 0.778 0.608 0.18 0.08
836 M.M.M. Abdel-Aal

Table 6 Comparison Between M/M/1, M/D/1 Models and Their Relative Errors for Hyper One mall.
Performance Measure Observed (Survey) Calculated Relative Error
M/M/1 M/D/1 M/M/1 M/D/1
Wq 8.824 27.314 13.657 2.10 0.55
Ws 21.442 39.934 26.278 0.86 0.23
Lq 0.479 1.480 0.740 2.09 0.54
Ls 1.164 2.164 1.424 0.86 0.22

exponential distribution. Service rate does not show that it fol- ln ¼ h  ð1=lÞ ð8Þ
low a Poisson distribution. Nevertheless, it was noticed that Eqn 7 can be looked at as if the calibrated service rate equals:
the service time is almost normally distributed. In fact, some
l
projects or researches applied simulation software with service l ¼ ð9Þ
time assumed to be normally distributed [13]. The normal dis- h
tribution with mean equal to the average service time (1=lÞ Consequently, the calibrated average service time can be
established from the survey data has some shift from the actual given as follows (Eqn 10):
service time distribution. This distribution is called the original 1 h
normal distribution and is given in Eqn 6 as follows: ¼ ¼ ln ð10Þ
l l
1 
ðx1=lÞ
fðxÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2d2 : 8x > 0; l; d > 0 ð6Þ Fig. 12 shows the original normal distribution with average
d 2p service time established from the survey data for San Stefano
where mall parking. The figure, also, shows the calibrated normal dis-
1=l: average service time (sec.) tribution with the mean (ln ) that represents the survey service
d: standard deviation(sec.) shows time distribution more closely.
The calibration in this part is to find the normal distribu- To guarantee the closeness between the calibrated normal
tion that represent the service time distribution more closely distribution and the actual service time distribution, Incidence
and use its mean (ln ) as the fixed deterministic service time Ratio (IR) was used as well.
for the M/D/1 model. In order to accomplish this task the nor- Starting with location variable h ¼ 1, the Add-in Solver of
mal distribution formula with location parameter is introduced EXCEL was used to find h that maximizes the incidence ratio
in Eqn 7 as follows: which was h ¼ 1:04. Table 7 shows the calibrated parameters

1 
ðxhðlÞÞ 1

fðxÞ ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffi e 2d2 : 8x > 0; l; d; h > 0 ð7Þ

d 2p Table 7 Calibrated Parameters for San Stefano mall.
where Parameter Original CalibratedNormal
h: location parameter equals 1.0 for the original l 7.300 7.019
distribution 1=l 8.219 8.548
The mean of the calibrated normal distribution is given in h 1.00 1.04
Eqn 8 as follows: q 0.438 0.455

Calibraon of Service Time & Normal Distribuon

0.1800
0.1600
Collected Data
Probibility Occurence

0.1400
Negave Exponenal
0.1200 (μ=0.1217)
0.1000 Original
Normal(μn=8.219,σ=3.5)
0.0800 Calibrated
0.0600 Normal(μn=8.548,σ=3.5)

0.0400
0.0200
0.0000
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Service Time (Seconds))

Fig. 12 Calibration of M/D/1 Service Time and Normal Distribution (San Stefano mall).
Survey-based calibration of a parking entry as a single-server mathematical queuing model 837

Calibrang Service Time & Negave Exponenal

0.120
Collected Data
0.100
Negave Exponenal

Probability Occurance
0.080 (μ=0.0793)
Original
0.060 Normal(μn=12,617,σ=4)
Calibrated
0.040
Normal(μn=9.97,σ=4)
0.020

0.000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
-0.020
Service Time (Seconds)

Fig. 13 Calibration of M/D/1 Service Time and Normal Distribution (Hyper One mall).

Table 8 Comparison between Relative Errors for Original and Calibrated M/D/1 for San Stefano mall.
Performance Measure Observed (Survey) M/D/1 Model Relative Error
Original Calibrated Original Calibrated
Wq 4.162 3.199 3.571 0.23 0.14
Ws 12.381 11.418 12.119 0.08 0.02
Lq 0.219 0.170 0.190 0.23 0.14
Ls 0.652 0.608 0.645 0.08 0.02

Similarly, Fig. 13 shows the original normal distribution

Table 9 Calibrated Parameters for Hyper One mall.
Parameter Original
l 4.755
1=l 12.617
h 1.00
q 0.684
for San Stefano mall parking. The value of d ¼ 3:5 s. is an
arbitrary value that seems to best fit the collected data
variation.
Table 8 shows the comparison of performance measures for
the original and calibrated M/D/1 model against the observed
survey data for San Stefano mall parking. The table also shows
a comparison between the relative errors for original and cal-
ibrated M/D/1.
It is clear that the calibrated M/D/1 is a lot better than the
original M/D/1 with Relative Error ranging between 2% and
14% compared to the original range between 8% and
23%.
along with the calibrated normal distribution for Hyper One
Calibrated Normal mall parking.
6.020 Again, the Add-in Solver of EXCEL was used to find h that
9.970 maximizes the incidence ratio which was h ¼ 0:79. Table 9
0.79 shows the calibrated parameters for Hyper One mall parking.
0.540 The value of d ¼ 4:0 s. is an arbitrary value that seems to best
fit the collected data variation
Table 10 shows the comparison of performance measures
for the original and calibrated M/D/1 model against the
observed survey data for Hyper one mall parking. The table
also shows a comparison between the relative errors for Orig-
inal and calibrated M/D/1.
It is clear that the calibrated M/D/1 is a lot better than the
original M/D/1 with Relative Error ranging between 24%
and 31% compared to the original range between 22% and
55%.
It is noticed, from the above analysis, that the value of h
might be directly proportional to the idleness percentage.
There is a potential to model this relation with broader data
sets of several locations. The ability to estimate h relative, in

Table 10 Comparison between Relative Errors for Original and Calibrated M/D/1 for Hyper One mall.
Performance Observed M/D/1 Model Relative Error
Measure (Survey)
Original Calibrated Original Calibrated
Wq 8.824 13.657 6.100 0.55 0.31
Ws 21.442 26.278 16.196 0.23 0.24
Lq 0.479 0.740 0.331 0.54 0.31
Ls 1.164 1.424 0.878 0.22 0.25
838
general, to system characteristics would enhance the power of
testing more scenarios of non-existing systems; i.e., systems
with h not defined.
5. Conclusions
The goal of this paper is to calibrate a mathematical queuing
model for parking lot entries with one queue and single-
server. Two study parking lots were chosen for this research;
one lot was in Alexandria: the San Stefano mall parking;
and one was in Giza: the Hyper One mall Parking.
The comparison between the collected data from the study
area survey and different analytical method calculation with
different models (M/M/1& M/D/1) shows that neither models
is accurate. Nevertheless, M/D/1 model seems to be closer to
the surveyed data with regard to the performance measures
(average waiting times and average queue lengths).
The inter-arrival time is acceptably proven to be stochastic
with exponential distribution and arrival rate is rigorously pro-
ven to follow Poisson distribution which conforms with the
main stream literature. Although, in theory, the service time
is neither stochastic with exponential distribution (although
frequently assumed so) nor deterministic with a constant aver-
age value, it proves to be almost perfectly normally distributed.
However, the M/D/1 model seems to be a relatively good
assumption to analytically model the queue system for the pur-
pose of estimating both delays and average queue length.
The proposed approach assumes that the service time is not
constant, rather, it is normally distributed. The calibration of
the average service time allowed for a location parameter to
adjust the modeled normal distribution to better fit the col-
lected data. The constant average service time to be used in
the M/D/1 model is estimated as the mean of the normal dis-
tribution calibrated with the surveyed data.
The calibration process resulted in estimating new average
service rate to be 7.019 vehicle per minute instead of the orig-
inally calculated 7.3 vehicle per minutes, for the San Stefano
mall parking using a location parameter of 1.04. A similar cal-
ibration for the Hyper One mall parking calibration resulted in
estimating new average service rate to be 6.020 vehicle per min-
ute instead of the originally calculated 4.755 vehicle per min-
utes, using a location parameter of 0.79.
The application of the calibrated M/D/1 model, i.e., with
the calibrated average service time, showed that the its perfor-
mance measures are significantly superior than those of the
original model for both San Stefano and Hyper One mall park-
ing lots. The relative error for the calibrated model ranges
between 2% and 14% compared to the original range
between 8% and 23% for San Stefano mall parking. Sim-
ilarly, the relative error of the calibrated model ranges between
24% and 31% compared to the original range between
22% and 55% for Hyper One mall parking.
The proposed approach efficiently succeeded in calibrating
(estimating) one of the main parameter of the relatively imper-
fect M/D/1 model, the average service time, by fitting it to the
normal distribution that it seems to follow, since its assump-
tion of being a random variable can’t be essentially defended.
The calibrated M/D/1 model effectively produced significantly
closer performance measures, in comparison to the surveyed
data, than the original model.
M.M.M. Abdel-Aal
Although the proposed approach is both efficient and effec-
tive, it lacks the ability to test scenarios of non existing systems
where h is not defined. This research can be extended to
include the estimation of h based on the system characteristics
such as k, l and q in addition to the service idleness
percentage.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The author thanks Mrs Eman Helal and Mr. Mahmoud
Hegazy for their effort in collecting the data needed for this
research.
References
[1] U. Narayan Bhat, Queuing Theory: Modeling and Analysis in
Applications, Birkhauser, Boston, 2008.
[2] Gustavo Ceballos, Owen Curtis, Queue analysis at toll and
parking exit plazas: a comparison between multi-server queuing
models and traffic simulation, ITE Annual Meeting and Exhibit,
2004.
[3] K.L. Muruganantha Prasad, B. Usha, A comparison between
M/M/1 and M/D/1 queuing models to vehicular traffic at
Kanyakumari district, IOSR J. Math. 11 (1) (2015) 13–15.
[4] M.J. de Smith, Statistical Analysis Handbook: A
Comprehensive handbook of Statistical Conceps, Techniques a
d Software Tools, The Winchelsea Press, 2018.
[5] Exponential Distribution, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Exponential_distribution.
[6] Fundamental of transportation/queuing, Wikipedia, https://en.
wikibooks.org/wiki/Fundamentals_of_Transportation/
Queueing.
[7] Howard M. Taylor, Samuel Karlin, An Introduction to
Stochastic Modeling, third ed., Academic Press, 1998.
[8] Ivo Adan, Jacques Resing, Queuing Systems, Department of
Mathematics and Computing Science, Eindhoven University of
Technology, The Netherlands, 2015.
[9] Houda Mehri, Taoufik Djemel, Study and simulation of queuing
theory in the toll motorway, Stud. Inform. Univ. 9 (2) (2011) 96–
130.
[10] Priti Bajpai and Maneesha, Analysis of Parking Lots While
Dubai Prepares for Expo 2020, in: Proceedings of 4th
International Conference on Logistics, Informatics and Service
Science, 2014, pp. 969–974.
[11] ‘‘Queuing Theory”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Queueing_theory.
[12] A. Ravindran, Don T. Phillips, James J. Solberg, Operation
Research Principles and Practice, Second Edition, Johan Wiley
and sons, 1987.
[13] Richard Sprosen, Modelling Car Park Operation using
Stochastic Queuing Simulation, Opus International
Consultants, https://www.transportationgroup.nz/.../Richard%
20Sprosen_Stochastic%20Queue%20Modell
[14] Statistics of The Poisson Distribution, https://www.umass.edu/
wsp/resources/poisson/.
[15] Transport, Access, Parking and Servicing Planning
Scheme Policy; Appendix2: planning scheme policies, Brisbane
City Plan 2000, Volume 2, 2013.