QUEUING THEORY

A flow of customers from finite/infinite population towards the service facility forms a queue on
account of lack of capability to serve them all at a time.
The arriving unit that requires some service to be performed is called customer. The customers may
be persons, machines or vehicles.
Queue stands for number of customers waiting to be serviced.
The process or system that performs services to the customer is termed by service channel or service
facility.
A queuing system can be completely described by
(i) The input(arrival pattern): The input describes the way in which customers arrive and join
the system.We deal with
those queuing system in which the customers arrive in poisson fashion. The mean arrival
rate is .
(ii) The service mechanism: This means the arrangement of service facility to serve
customers.The distribution of
service time is important and it is negative exponential. The mean service rate is denoted by
.
(iii) The queue discipline: It is a rule according to which customers are selected for service
when a queue has been
formed.The most common disciplines are
-FCFS
-FIFO
-LIFO
-SIRO
(iv) Customers behavior: The customers generally behave in the following four ways.
Balking- A customer who leaves the queue because the queue is too long and he has no
time to wait or has no
sufficient waiting space.
Reneging- A waiting customer leaves the queue due to impatience.
Jockeying- Customers may jockey from one waiting line to another.

Transient state & Steady state.

A system is said to be in transient state when its operating characteristics are dependent on time.
A steady state system is the one in which the behaviour of the system is independent of time.

Traffic Intensity
Traffic intensity( ) = Mean arrival rate/ Mean service rate = /

Kendalls notation for representing queuing models

Queuing models are generally specified in the following symbolic form (a/b/c) : (d/e) where
a = Probability law for the arrival time
b = Probability law according to which the customers are being served.
c = number of channels
d = capacity of the system
e = queue discipline.

Queuing Models
I.

( M/M/1): (/ FCFS)
This model is based on the following assumptions.

(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)

Arrivals follow poisson distribution

Service time follow exponential distribution
Single server
Infinite capacity.
First come first served service discipline.

Performance measures for Model I:

1.

Expected number of customers in the system (Ls) = / ( - )

2.

Expected number of customers in the queue (Lq) = 2 / ( - )

3.

Expected waiting time for a customer in the queue(Wq) = / ( - )

4.

Expected waiting time for a customer in the system (Ws) = = 1 / ( - )

5.

Probability that the queue is non-empty P(n>1) =( / )2

6.

Probability that the number of customers ,n in the system exceeds a given number, k P(n>=k)
= =( / )k
7.

Expected length of non-empty queue = / ( - ).

Problems
1. A television repairman finds that the time spent on his jobs has an exponential
distribution with a mean of 30 minutes. If he repairs sets in the order in which
they came in, and if the arrival of sets follow a poisson distribution with an
average rate of 10 per 8 hour day, what is the repairmans expected idle time
each day? How many jobs are ahead of the average set just brought in?
Solution
= 10/8 = 5/4 sets/hr ; = (1/30) 60 = 2 sets /hr.
Number of hours for which the repairman remains busy in 8-hour
day = 8* ( / ) =8(5/8)= 8 hrs.
Repairmans expected idle time in an 8 hour day = 8-5 = 3 hrs.
Expected number of T.V sets in the system=(Ls) = / ( - )
= (5/4)/[2-(5/4)]
= 5/3
= 2 sets (approx.)

2. Arrivals at telephone booth are considered to be Poisson with an average time of 10 minutes
between one arrival and the next. The length of phone call is assumed to be distributed exponentially,
with mean 3 minutes.
(a) What is the probability that a person arriving at the booth will have to wait?
(b) The telephone department will install a second booth when convinced that an arrival
would expect waiting for at least 3 minutes for a phone call. By how much should
the flow of arrivals increase in order to justify a second booth?
(c ) What is the average length of the queue that forms from time to time?
(d) What is the probability that it will take him more than 10 minutes altogether to wait
for the phone and complete his call.
Solution
= 1/10 person/minute ;

= 1/3 = 0.33 person/minute .

a) Probability that a person arriving at the booth will have to wait = 1- P0 = 0.3
b) The installation of the 2nd booth will be justified only if the arrival rate is more

than the waiting time.

Let be the increased arrival rate. Then expected waiting time in the
queue will be
(Wq) = / ( - )
3
= / 0.33(0.33- )
Or =0.16
Hence the increase in the arrival rate is 0.16-0.10 = 0.06 arrivals /minute.
(c ) Average length of non-empty queue = / ( - ).= 0.33/0.23 = 2 customers(approx.)
(d) Probability of waiting for 10 minutes or more = P(t>=10)

= ( / ) ( - ) e -( - )t dt
10

= 0.3 * 0.23 * e -0.23 t dt

10
= 0.03
II. ( M/M/1): (N/ FCFS):
This model differs from that of model I in the sense that the maximum number of
customers in the
system is limited to N. Therefore, the difference equations of Model I are valid for this model
as long as n < N.
Arrivals will not exceed N in any case. The various measures of this model are:
1.

P0 = (1-)/(1- N+1) ; <1.

2.

Pn = (1-)/(1- N+1) n ;n<=N; =/ 1

= 1/(N+1) ; =1.
N
)

N+1

3.

Ls = (1-)/(1-

4.

Lq = Ls - /

5.

Ws = Ls / [(1-pN)]

n n

6.

Wq= Ws 1/
Problems

1. A barber shop has space to accommodate only 10 customers. He can serve only one person at a
time.
If a customer comes to his shop and finds it full he goes to the next shop. Customers
randomly arrive at an average rate of 10 /hrs and the barber service time is negative
exponential with an average of 5 minutes/customer. Find P0 and Pn.
Solution:
N=10 ; = 10/60: = 1/5.
P0 =(1-)/(1- N+1) = 0.1667/0.8655 = 0.1926
Pn = (1-)/(1- N+1) n
= (0.1926)x (5/6) n ; n= 0,1,2,..10.
2. For a queuing system with arrival rate 3 units/hr, service rate 4 units/hr and N= 2, calculate the
expected
number of units in the system.
N
Ls = (1-)/(1- N+1) n n
n=1

2
= 0.43 x n (0.75) n
n=0
= 0.81