Queuing models

The queuing theory has customer or element, service and service facility. Here customer
or element represents a person or machine or any other thing, which is in need of some
service from servicing point. Service represents any type of attention to the customer to
satisfy his need. A flow of customers from infinite or finite population towards the service
facility forms a queue on account of lack of capability to serve them all at a time. A queue
stands for a group of customers / items waiting at some place to receive attention / service
including those receiving the service. The process or system that performs the services to
the customer is termed as service channel or service facility. In any queuing system, we
have an input that arrives at some facility for service or processing and the time between
the arrivals of individual inputs at the service facility is commonly random in nature.
Similarly, the time for service or processing is commonly a random variable.
Servers may be in parallel or in series.

Four basic structures of waiting line situations

If queue length exceeds a limit, the customer get frustrated and leave the queue to get the
service at some other service station. In this case the organization loses the customer
goodwill.
A service facility waits for arrival of customers when the total capacity of system is more
than the number of customers requiring service. In this case service facility remains idle
for a considerable time.
If the length of the queue is longer, the waiting time of the customer will increase causing
dissatisfaction of customer and to avoid the longer waiting time of customer.
If the management increases the service facilities, then many a time we see that the service
facilities will remain idle causing burden on the organization. To avoid this situation, the
theory of waiting line will help us to reduce the waiting time of the customer and suggest
the organization to install optimal number of service facilities, so that customer will be
happy and the organization can run the business economically. The theory tries to strike a
balance between the costs associated with waiting and costs of preventing waiting and
help us to determine the optimal number of service facilities required and optimal arrival
rate of the customers of the system.

Queuing System/Process
Entire queuing system can be completely described by:
(a) The input (Arrival pattern)
(b) The service mechanism or service pattern,
(c) The queue discipline and
(d) Customer behavior.
Components of the queuing system are arrivals, the element waiting in the queue, the unit
being served, the service facility and the unit leaving the queue after service.

The input describes the way in which the customers arrive and join the system. In general
customer arrival will be in random fashion, which cannot be predicted, because the
customer is an independent individual and the service organization has no control over the
customer.
Characteristics of arrivals

Customer behaviour
The length of the queue or the waiting time of a customer or the idle time of the service
facility mostly depends on the behaviour of the customer. Here the behaviour refers to the
impatience of a customer during the stay in the line. Customer behaviour can be classified
as:
i. Balking: This behaviour signifies that the customer does not like to join the
queue seeing the long length of it. This behaviour may effect in losing a customer
by the organization. Always a lengthy queue indicates insufficient service facility
and customer may not turn out next time.
ii. Reneging: In this case the customer joins the queue and after waiting for certain
time loses his patience and leaves the queue. This behaviour of the customer may
also cause loss of customer to the organization.
iii. Collusion: In this case several customers may collaborate and only one of them
may stand in the queue. One customer represents a group of customer. Here the
queue length may be small but service time for an individual will be more. This
may break the patience of the other customers in the waiting line and situation
may lead to any type of worst episode.
 iv. Jockeying: If there are number of waiting lines depending on the number of
service stations, a customer in one of the queue after seeing the other queue
length, which is shorter, with a hope of getting the service, may leave the present
queue and join the shorter queue. Perhaps the situation may be that other queue
which is shorter may be having more number of Collaborated customers. In such
case the probability of getting service to the customer who has changed the queue
may be very less. Because of this character of the customer, the queue lengths
may goes on changing from time to time.

Service Mechanism or Service Facility

Service facilities arranged to serve the arriving customer or a customer in the waiting line.
The time required to serve the customer cannot be estimated until we know the need of the
customer.

Designation of Queue and Symbols used in Queuing Models

A model is expressed as
A/B/S: (d / f) where,
A: Arrival pattern of the units, given by the probability distribution of inter - arrival time
of units. For example, Poisson distribution, Erlang distribution, and inter arrival time
is 1 minute or 10 units arrive in 30 minutes etc.
B: The probability distribution of service time of individual being actually served. For
example the service time follows negative exponential distribution and 10 units are
served in 10 minutes or the service time is 3 minutes, etc.
S: The number of service channels in the system. For example the item is served at one
service facility or the person will receive service at 3 facilities etc.
d: Capacity of the system. That is the maximum number of units the system can
accommodate at any time. For example, the system has limited capacity of 40 units or
the system has infinite capacity etc.
f: The manner or order in which the arriving units are taken into service i.e. FIFO / LIFO /
SIRO /Priority.

Notations
X: Inter arrival time between two successive customers (arrivals).
Y: The service time required by any customer.
w: The waiting time for any customer before it is taken into service.
v: Time spent by the customer in the system.
n: Number of customers in the system, i.e. customers in the waiting line at any time,
including the number of customers being served.
λn: Average number of customers arriving per unit of time, when there are already ‘n’
units in the system.
λ: Average number of customers arriving per unit of time.
µn: Average number of customers being served per unit of time when there are already ‘n’
units in the system.
µ: Average number of customers being served per unit of time.
1 / λ: Inter arrival time between two arrivals.
1 / µ : Service time between two units or customers.
ρ = (µ / λ) :System utility or traffic intensity which tells us how much time the
system was utilized in a given time. For example given time is 8 hours and if ρ = 3 / 8,
it means to say that out of 8 hours the system is used for 3 hours and (8 - 3 = 5) 5
hours the is idle.
Queue Models
Most elementary queuing models assume that the inputs / arrivals and outputs / departures
follow a birth and death process. Any queuing model is characterized by situations where
both arrivals and departures take place simultaneously. Depending upon the nature of
inputs and service faculties, there can be a number of queuing models as shown below:
(i) Probabilistic queuing model: Both arrival and service rates are some unknown
random variables.
(ii) Deterministic queuing model: Both arrival and service rates are known and fixed.
(iii) Mixed queuing model: Either of the arrival and service rates is unknown random
variable and other known and fixed.
Earlier we have seen how to designate a queue. Arrival pattern / Service pattern / Number
of channels / (Capacity / Order of servicing). (A /B/ S / (d / f).
In general M is used to denote Poisson distribution (Markovian) of arrivals and
departures.
D is used to constant or Deterministic distribution.
Ek is used to represent Erlangian probability distribution.
G is used to show some general probability distribution.
Queuing models are used to explain the descriptive behavior of a queuing system.
These quantify the effect of decision variables on the expected waiting times and waiting
lengths as well as generate waiting cost and service cost information.

Poisson Arrival / Poisson output / Number of channels / Infinite capacity /

FIFO Model
M / M / 1 / (∞ / FIFO):
Formulae used
1. Average number of arrivals per unit of time = λ
2. Average number of units served per unit of time = µ
3. Traffic intensity or utility ratio = ρ = µ / λ the condition is: (λ > µ)
4. Probability that the system is empty = P0 = (1 - ρ )
5. Probability that there are ‘n’ units in the system = Pn = ρn P0
6. Average number of units in the system =
1. Average number of units in the waiting line =

8. Average waiting length (mean time in the system) = E (L / L > 0)

1. Average length of waiting line with the condition that it is always greater than
zero

2. Average time an arrival spends in the system =

3. P (w > 0) = System is busy = ρ

4. Idle time = (1 – ρ)

5. Probability distribution of waiting time = P (w) dw =

6. Probability that a consumer has to wait on arrival = (P (w > 0) = ρ
7. Probability that a new arrival stays in the system =

Problem
A T.V. Repairman finds that the time spent on his jobs have an exponential distribution
with mean of 30 minutes. If he repairs sets in the order in which they come in, and if the
arrival of sets is approximately Poisson with an average rate of 10 per 8 hour day, what is
repairman’s expected idle time each day? How many jobs are ahead of the average set just
brought in?
Solution
This problem is Poisson arrival/Negative exponential service / single channel /infinite
capacity/ FIFO type problem.
Data: λ = 10 sets per 8 hour day = 10 / 8 = 5/4 sets per hour.
Given µ/1 = 30 minutes, hence µ = (1/30) × 60 = 2 sets per hour.
Hence, Utility ratio = ρ = (µ / λ) = (5/4) / 2 = = 5 / 8. = 0.625. This means out of 8 hours
5 hours the system is busy i.e. repairman is busy.
Probability that there is no queue = The system is idle = ( 1 – ρ ) = 1 - (5 / 8) = 3 / 8
That is out of 8 hours the repairman will be idle for 3 hours.
Number of sets ahead of the set just entered = Average number of sets in system
= λ / (µ - λ )
= ρ / ( 1 – ρ ) = 0.625 / (1 - 0.625) = 5 / 3 ahead of jobs just came in.

Problem
In a departmental store one cashier is there to serve the customers. And the customers pick
up their needs by themselves. The arrival rate is 9 customers for every 5 minutes and the
cashier can serve 10 customers in 5 minutes. Assuming Poisson arrival rate and
exponential distribution for service rate, find:
(a) Average number of customers in the system.
(b) Average number of customers in the queue or average queue length.
(c) Average time a customer spends in the system.
(d) Average time a customer waits before being served.