Quiz 2 Practice Problems

Exponential Distribution, Poisson Distribution, Poisson Processes, and Queueing: M/M/1 and M/M/s
Queues

Chapter 20:
Pg. 1063: 20.2.4, 20.2.7;
Pg. 1082: 20.4.3, 20.4.4, 20.4.6, 20.4.7, 20.4.10, 20.4.15;
Pg. 1094: 20.6.3a-c, 20.6.5, 20.6.6, For 589 Students only: 20.6.14

1. The running track in a stadium is 1 km long. Two runners start on it at the same time. The speed
of runner 1 is Xi (i=1,2). Suppose Xi ~ exp(λi) and that X1 and X2 are independent. The mean
speed of runner 1 is 20 km/hr whereas that of runner 2 is 22 km/hr. What is the probability that
runner 1 wins the race?

2. Suppose customers arrive at a post office according to a Poisson process with λ=10
customers/hr.
a) What is the expected number of customers who use the post office during an 8-hr
day?
b) What is the distribution of the number of customers served during an 8-hr day?
c) What is the probability that no one arrives at the post office from 1:00pm to
1:06pm?

3. Airlines are evaluated based on their punctuality. A flight is defined as being “on time” if it
arrives within ten minutes of its scheduled arrival time. ORD is interested in tracking the
timeliness of flights scheduled to arrive at 8am. Flights arrive at an average of 12 planes per 10
minutes, with exponentially distributed inter-arrival times.

a) What is the probability that a flight will arrive “on time” (i.e., between 8am and
8:10am)?
b) What is the probability that 12 flights will arrive in the next 10 minutes?
c) Given that no flights arrived in the past 5 minutes, what is the probability that no
planes will arrive in the next 5 minutes?
d) What is the probability that of 15 flights scheduled to land at 8am, 10 of them will
be “on time” (i.e., 10 flights will arrive between 8am and 8:10am)?
e) Compute the mean and standard deviation of the average time between flight
arrivals.

4. The service manager for Northwest Airlines is uncertain about the time required for the ground
crew to turn an airplane around from the time it lands until it is ready to take off. She has been
given information from the operations supervisor indicating that the times seem to range
between 12 and 47 minutes. Without any further information, the service manager will apply a
uniform distribution to the turnaround.

a) What is the probability that it will take longer than 30 minutes to turnaround an
airplane?
b) Upon studying the turnaround time data the service manager believes that
turnaround times are actually exponentially distributed with a mean time between
 turnarounds of 20 minutes. What is the probability a turnaround is between 12 and
47 minutes?
c) In order to satisfy schedule requirements, at least 5 planes must be turned around
every 40 minutes. Using the new information from part c, what is the probability
that the ground crew will be able to satisfy the schedule requirements?

5. Data indicate that the number of traffic accidents in Berkeley on a rainy day is a Poisson random
variable with mean 9, whereas on a dry day it is a Poisson random variable with mean 3. Let X
denote the number of traffic accidents tomorrow. If it will rain tomorrow with probability 0.6,
find
a) E[X]
b) P{X=0}
c) V[X]

6. A study conducted at First City Bank shows that the average number of arrivals to the teller
section of the bank per hour is 16. Further, the distribution for the number of arrivals is
considered to be Poisson distributed.
a) What is the probability of 12 customers in one hour?
b) Based on previous studies, the bank manager believes that the service time for
each customer is quite constant at 15 minutes. Suppose, during each 15-minute
time period, the bank has three tellers available. This means that three
customers can be served during each 15-minute segment. The manager is
interested in the probability that one or more customers will have to wait for
service during the first 15 minutes the bank is open each morning.

7. Arrivals at a bank ATM are distributed according to a Poisson distribution with a mean equal to
three per 15 minutes.
a) Determine the probability that in a given 15-minute segment no customers will
arrive at the ATM machine.
b) What is the probability that fewer than four customers will arrive in a 30-minute
segment?

8. A new phone answering system installed by the North Carolina Power Company is capable of
handling five calls every 10 minutes. Prior to installing the new system, company analysts
determined that the incoming calls to the system are Poisson distributed with a mean equal to
two every 10 minutes. If this incoming call distribution is what analysts think it is, what is the
probability that in a 10-minute period more calls will arrive than the system can handle?

9. An Internet bank can process a maximum of 25 electronic transfers every minute during the
busiest periods of the day. If it receives more transfer requests that this, then the bank’s
computer system will become so overburdened that it will slow to the point that no electronic
transfers can be handled. If, during the busiest periods of the day, requests for electronic
transfers arrive at the rate of 170 per 10-minute period on average, what is the probability that
the system will be overwhelmed by requests? Assume that the process can be described using a
Poisson distribution.

10. Suppose you are traveling on business to a foreign country for the first time. You do not have a
bus schedule or a watch with you. However, you have been told that buses stop in front of your
 hotel every 20 minutes throughout the day. If you show up at the bus stop at a random moment
during the day, what is the probability that
a) you will have to wait for more than 10 minutes?
b) you will only have to wait for 6 minutes or less?
c) you will have to wait between 8 and 15 minutes?

Questions from previous Quizzes:

1. (Total: 35 points) A hospital Emergency Department behaves like three M/M/1 queues depending
on the time of day. Patient arrivals to a hospital Emergency Department vary according to the
time of day, morning arrivals occur according to a Poisson distribution at a rate of ten patients per
30 minutes. Fifteen percent of patients arrive during the morning. Afternoon arrivals occur
according to a Poisson distribution at a rate of 15 patients per 30 minutes. Twenty five percent of
patients arrive during the afternoon. The rest of the patients arrive during the evening according
to a Poisson distribution at a rate of 30 patients per 30 minutes. Service times also depend on time
of day. During the morning patient care occurs according to an exponential distribution with a
rate of 20 patients per 30 minutes. During the afternoon and evening patient care occurs
according to exponential distributions with a rate of 15 patients per 30 minutes.

a) What is the probability the emergency department is empty? (5 points)

b) On average how much time does a morning patient spend waiting for care? (5 points)

c) On average how much time does a patient spend waiting for care? (10 points)
 d) On average how many morning patients are waiting for care? (5 points)

e) There is a new emergency department being built close to the hospital, it will cut the
hospital’s emergency department arrival rate in half at all times of the day. How will this
affect your answers to parts (a), (b), and (e)? (5 points)

f) The hospital emergency department is considering automating some of its processes, this will
cut the service rate in half at all times of the day. How will this affect your answers to parts
(a), (b), and (e)? (5 points)

2. (Total: 25 points) Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are in the hunt for the Formula One
2010 Title. Each race a driver wins gets him closer to winning the prize for the season. Assume
each driver’s driving time is exponentially distributed and driver’s times are independent of each
other. Lewis Hamilton’s driving time is exponentially distributed with a rate of 180 miles per
hour. Fernando Alonso’s driving time is exponentially distributed with a rate of 175 miles per
hour.
a) What is the probability that Lewis Hamilton wins the race? (10 points)
b) The British Grand Prix is 60 laps long and each lap is 3.667 miles long,

i. What is the probability Lewis Hamilton takes longer than 90 seconds to complete the
first lap? There are two methods for solving this problem. Complete using both
methods. (10 points)
ii. Draw a picture to illustrate the relationship between the time to complete the third lap
and the number of laps completed. (5 points)