QUEUEING THEORY

Waiting for service is a part of our life. Queues / waiting lines are omnipresent. This
phenomenon is becoming more and more prevalent in increasingly congested and urbanized
society.
REASONS FOR WAITING
• MORE DEMAND FOR SERVICE THAN THE AVAILABLE FACILITIES FOR
SERVICE.
• SHORTAGE OF AVAILABLE SERVERS.
• INFEASIBILITY OF ECONOMY TO PROVIDE THE LEVEL OF SERVICE.
• LIMITATION OF SPACE.
These limitations can be removed by studying
 How much service be made available?
 How long customers wait?
 How many customers will form the queue?
Queuing theory attempts / succeeds in many cases to answer this problem through
mathematical model in detail. It is concerned with the statistical description of the behavior of
queues, i.e., the probability distribution of the number of arrivals, mean and variance of queue
length, the probability distribution of waiting time of a customer, the probability distribution of
servers’ busy period.
QUEUING SYSTEM
• Customers arrive for service
• Waiting for service if it is not immediate
• Leaving the system after being served
Basic Six Characteristics of queueing Processes
1. Arrival Pattern of Customers ::
Measured in terms of the average number of arrivals / time OR the average time between
successive arrivals Though many types of arrival pattern are in practice, we deal with those
queuing systems in which the arrival pattern follow Poisson distribution with mean arrival rate
or inter arrival time has an exponential distribution with mean . The number of customers may
be from finite or infinite sources.
Bulk / Batch arrivals : More than one arrival can enter the system simultaneously.
Reaction of a customer upon entering the system ::
Balking :: customer decides not to enter the queue.
Reneging :: customer decide to leave the queue due to impatience.
Jockeying :: Switch from one queue to another
Priority :: Some customers are served before the others.`
Stationary Arrival Pattern:: Input process independent of time.
2. Service Pattern / Service mechanism of servers

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 Described by the number of customers served per unit of time OR Time required to serve a
customer. This pattern includes the distribution of the time to serve a customer, the number of
servers and the arrangement of servers may be in series or in parallel. The number of servers may
be finite or infinite. Service may be single or batch. Though many types of service patterns are in
practice, we follow exponential service pattern. We follow queuing systems in which the service
time follows Poisson distribution with service rate or inter service time has an exponential
distribution with mean .

• Service Times
– Random : mainly modeled by using exponential distribution or truncated normal
distribution (truncate at 0).
– Constant
• Service mechanism describes how the servers are configured.
– Parallel - multiple servers are operating and take customer in from the same queue.
– Serial - customers have to go through a series of servers before completion of
service
– Combinations of parallel and serial.
3. Queue Discipline
The manner by which customers are selected for service.
FIFO/ FCFS :: First in first out or first come first served.
LIFO/LCFS :: Last in first out or Last come first out
SIRO :: Selection in random order
PIR :: Priority in selection
4. System Capacity :
In some queueing processes there is a physical limitation to the amount of waiting room,
so that when a line reaches a certain length, no further customers are allowed to enter until
space becomes available as a result of service completion. These are referred as finite
queueing situations. A queue with limited waiting room can be viewed as one forced
balking where a customer is forced to balk if it arrives when the queue size is at its limit.
5. Number of service channels :
It is generally preferable to design multiserver queueing systems to be fed by a single line.
Thus, when we specify the number of service channels, we are typically referring to the
number of paralleled service stations which can serve customers simultaneously. It is
generally assumed that the service mechanisms of parallel channels operate independently
of each other.
6. Stages of service :
A queue system may have only a single stage of service, or it may have several stages. In
some multistage queueing processes recycling or feed-back may occur. Recycling is
common in manufacturing process, where quality control inspections are performed after
certain stages, and parts that do not meet quality standards are sent back for reproducing.
Transient State :: Operating characteristics are dependent of time.
Steady State :: Operating characteristics are independent of time.
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 Kendall’s Notation :: Kendall defined the notations for parallel server systems
Symbolic Representation (a/b/c) : (d/e/K)
a : type of the distribution of the number of arrivals / inter-arrival time
b : type of the distribution of the service time
c : number of parallel servers
d : capacity of the system
e : queue discipline
K : for size of calling population
(Out of the six symbols the first three are essential to represent one queuing system)
Kendall Notation Examples
• M/M/1:
– Poisson arrivals and exponential service, 1 server, infinite capacity and population,
FCFS (FIFO)
– the simplest ‘realistic’ queue
• M/M/m: Same, but m servers
M : the number of arrivals in time t & the number of completed services in time t follow
Poisson process which is a continuous time Markov chain.
• G/G/3:20/1500/SPF
General arrival and service distributions, 3 servers, 17 queue slots (20-3), 1500 total jobs,
Shortest Packet First
• Characteristics
– = customer arrival rate (in customers per time unit)
– = service rate of one server (in service/transaction per time unit)
Performance metric
n= number of customers in the system
Sn= the state in which there are n customers in the system
= traffic intensity or average utilization factor or probability that the server is busy or
probability that the customer arriving at the system will have to wait.
= average length of queue or expected number of customers in the queue

= average / expected number of customers in the system

= average / expected number of customers in non-empty queues

= average/ expected waiting time in queue

= average/ expected waiting time spent in the system

= average/ expected waiting time of a customer in the queue if he has to wait

= Probability of n customers in the system

Queue size = number of customers in the system.
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 Queue length = queue size – number of units being served.
M/M/1/¥/¥ or M/M/1 model :: Single server with infinite capacity
• One of the basic queueing models.
• Single server, both arrival rate l and service rate m are exponentialy distributed
Assumptions : 1. The average arrival rate is constant .
2. The average service rate is constant.
3. so that queue is not infinite.
Little’s Law
Average number of jobs in system = average arrival rate × average service time for each job

1. The expected number of customers in the system i.e.

2. The expected number of customers in the queue i.e.

3. Average utilization factor

4. The expected number of customers in the nonempty queues

5. The probability that the number of customers in the system

6. Expected waiting time of a customer in the queue

7. The probability that the waiting time of a customer in the queue exceeds t

8. Average waiting time of a customer in the queue, if he has to wait

9. Expected waiting time of a customer in the system

10. Probability that the waiting time of a customer in the system exceeds t,

11. The probability that there is no customer in the system at a given time

12. The probability that there are n people in the system .

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M/M/s/¥/¥:: Multiple server with infinite capacity
Assumptions : 1. The average arrival rate is for all n.

2. The average service rate is .

3. The average arrival rate is less than , that is .

1. The probability that there are n people in the system .

2. Average utilization factor

3. The probability that there is no customer in the system at a given time

4. The expected number of customers in the queue .

5. The expected number of customers in the system

6. The expected number of customers in the nonempty queues

7. The probability that an arrival has to wait:

8. The probability that an arrival Enters the service without wait:

9. Expected waiting time of a customer in the queue

10. Expected waiting time of a customer in the system

11. Average number of idle servers average number of customers served.

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M/M/1/K model :: Single server with finite capacity
System can accommodate maximum number of K customers.

Assumptions : 1. The average arrival rate is

2. The average service rate is .

3. need not be less than , since the queue cannot build up without bound.

1. The probability that there are n people in the system .

2. The probability that there is no customer in the system .

3. The expected number of customers in the system .

4. The expected number of customers in the queue .

5. All the traffic reaching the system does not enter the system because customers are not
allowed admission when there are K customers in the system that is with probability .
Thus, the Average rate of effective customers into the system .

6. Average utilization factor .

7. Expected waiting time of a customer in the queue .

8. Expected waiting time of a customer in the system .

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