PROBLEM 1

An on-line inquiry system receives two types of inquiries. Type 1 inquiries arrive in a Poisson
pattern at an average arrival rate of 0.9 per second. The time required for the system to respond is
nearly constant with an average value of 0.4 seconds. The Type 2 inquiries arrive at an average
rate of 1 every 10 seconds. The system response time for Type 2 inquiries has a two-stage
hyperexponential distribution with OL1 = 0.4, a2 = 0.6, \Ιμγ = 10 seconds, 1/μ2 = 5/3 seconds;
so the average system response time for Type 2 inquiries is 5 seconds, with a second moment of
83.33 seconds2 . Contrast the operation of the system with (a) no priorities, (b) with an HOL
priority system that gives priority to Type 1 inquiries, and (c) with preemptive-resume priority
given to Type 1 inquiries.

Solution (a) For a nonpriority system the average service time

E[s] = 0.9x0.4 + 0.1x 5 = 0.36 + 0.5 = 0.86 seconds
E[s2 ] = 0.9 x 0.42 + .1 x 83.33 = 8.477 seconds2
p = XE[s\ = 0.86
Wq = E[q] = ^ ^ = 30.275 seconds.

Average time in the system for Type 1 inquiries is

Wx = 30.275 + 0.4 = 30.675 seconds.
Average time in the system for Type 2 inquiries is
W2 = 30.275 + 5 = 35.275 seconds.
Overall average waiting time in the system is
W = Wq + E[s] = 31.135 seconds.

(b) For an HOL queueing system with Type 1 inquiries having nonpreemptive priority over Type 2
inquiries
(c) For a priority queueing system with Type 1 inquiries receiving preemptive-repeat priority
over Type 2 inquiries, using ux and u2 from (b), yields the waiting times in the system
We summarize this data from this example in Table 5.4.1.

THE RESULTS SHOWN IN TABLE 5.4.1 ILLUSTRATE HOW A PRIORITY SYSTEM CAN DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE THE
PERFORMANCE OF A QUEUEING SYSTEM. THE AVERAGE QUEUEING TIME FOR A TYPE 1 INQUIRY DROPS FROM 30.275
SECONDS FOR A NONPRIORITY SYSTEM TO 6.6227 SECONDS FOR AN HOL QUEUEING SYSTEM; FOR A PREEMPTIVE-RESUME
SYSTEM, IT IS ONLY 0.1125 SECONDS! THE OVERALL AVERAGE QUEUEING TIME DROPS FROM 30.275 SECONDS TO
10.6909 SECONDS, AND THEN TO 5.113 SECONDS; THE IMPROVEMENT IN AVERAGE SYSTEM TIME IS SIMILAR. THE
PERFORMANCE OF THE SYSTEM FOR TYPE 2 INQUIRIES SUFFERS, BUT NOT SEVERELY. THE READER IS ASKED TO SHOW IN
EXERCISE 37 THAT, IF THE TYPE 2 INQUIRIES WERE GIVEN PRIORITY OVER TYPE 1 INQUIRIES, THE OVERALL AVERAGE
QUEUEING AND SYSTEM TIMES WOULD BE LARGER FOR THE PRIORITY SYSTEMS THAN FOR THE ORIGINAL NONPRIORITY
SYSTEM.

so that

Hence,

THAT IS, N HAS A POISSON DISTRIBUTION

! IT CAN BE SHOWN (SEE GROSS AND HARRIS [6]) THAT (5.2.80) IS ALSO TRUE
FOR AN M/G/OO QUEUEING SYSTEM. THE FACT THAT PN HAS A POISSON DISTRIBUTION TELLS US THAT L = E[N] = U IS THE
AVERAGE NUMBER OF BUSY SERVERS, WITH VAR[A/] = U. THE M/M/OO QUEUEING MODEL CAN BE USED TO ESTIMATE THE
NUMBER OF LINES IN USE IN A LARGE COMMUNICATION NETWORK OR AS A GROSS ESTIMATE OF VALUES IN AN M/M/C OR
M/M/C/C QUEUEING SYSTEM FOR LARGE VALUES OF C. IN EXAMPLE 5.2.8, U WAS 7 ERLANGS WHICH WAS CLOSE TO THE
AVERAGE NUMBER OF SERVERS IN USE FOR THE M/M/15/15 QUEUEING SYSTEM. ALSO

PROBLEM 2
Calls in a telephone system arrive randomly at an exchange at the rate of 140 per hour. If there are a very
large number of lines available to handle the calls which last an average of 3 minutes, what is the average
number of lines in use? Estimate the 90th and 95th percentile of number of lines in use.
Solution
The M/M/oo model can be used to estimate the requested values. For this example

Hence, the average number of lines in use is 7. We can use the normal approximation as a first estimate of
percentile values. The 90th percentile value of the normal distribution is the mean plus 1.28 standard
deviations; the 95th percentile value is the mean plus 1.645 standard deviations. Thus the 90th percentile
value of number of lines is 7 + 1.28^/7 = 10.38 or 11 lines; the 95th percentile value is 7 + 1.645^/7 =
11.35 or 12 lines.
This model, a limited source model in which there are only K customers, is variously called the machine
repair model, the machine interference
Similarly, using the distribution function of q, we calculate

A number of formulas for an M/M/l queueing system are shown in Table 3 of Appendix C and
can be evaluated by the APL function ΜΔΜΔ1 of Appendix B.