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Erlang Distribution

The Erlang distribution is a probability distribution used to model systems like telephone call waiting times. It was developed by A.K. Erlang to analyze telephone traffic and switching systems. The Erlang distribution has two parameters: k, the shape parameter which must be a positive integer, and μ, the scale parameter which is a positive real number. It is a specific case of the Gamma distribution and reduces to the exponential distribution when k=1. The Erlang distribution is used in queuing theory, stochastic processes, and mathematical biology to model systems with waiting or delays.

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364 views5 pages

Erlang Distribution

The Erlang distribution is a probability distribution used to model systems like telephone call waiting times. It was developed by A.K. Erlang to analyze telephone traffic and switching systems. The Erlang distribution has two parameters: k, the shape parameter which must be a positive integer, and μ, the scale parameter which is a positive real number. It is a specific case of the Gamma distribution and reduces to the exponential distribution when k=1. The Erlang distribution is used in queuing theory, stochastic processes, and mathematical biology to model systems with waiting or delays.

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Dau Kumar
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What is the Erlang Distribution?

The Erlang distribution (sometimes called the Erlang-k distribution) was developed by A.K. Erlang to find the number of
phone calls which can be made simultaneously to switching station operators. Erlang was a telecommunications engineer
for the Copehagen Telephone Company; his formulas for loss and waiting time were used by many telephone companies,
including the British Post Office. Erlang’s distribution has since been expanded for use in queuing theory, the mathematical
study of waiting in lines. It is also used in stochastic processes and in mathematical biology.
The Erlang distribution is a specific case of the Gamma distribution. It is defined by two parameters, k and &u;, where:
 k is the shape parameter. This must be a positive integer (an integer is a whole number without a fractional part). In the Gamma
distribution, k can be any real number, including fractions.
 μ is the scale parameter. Must be a positive real number (a real number is any number found on the number line, including
fractions).

Erlang distribution showing various possible shape and scale parameters. Image: IkamusumeFan|Wikimedia Commons.

The probability distribution function of the Erlang distribution is:

The factorial(!) in the denominator is the reason why the distribution is only defined for positive numbers. An equivalent form
of the pdf for this distribution includes λ, a measure of rate, which is related to μ in the following way:
μ = 1/λ.
λ represents the number of items or calls expected in a given amount of time.

Statistics of the Erlang Distribution


 Mean: k / λ.
 Variance: k / λ2.
 Skewness: 2 / &sqrt;k.
 Kurtosis: 6 / k.

Relationship to Other Distributions


 The Gamma distribution is a generalized form of the Erlang distribution.
 If the shape parameter k is 1, the distribution is the same as the exponential distribution.
 If the scale parameter is 2, the distribution is the same as a chi-squared distribution with 2 degrees of freedom.
Probability density function

In probability theory, the expected value of a random variable is a key aspect of its probability distribution.
Intuitively, a random variable's expected value represents the average of a large number of independent
realizations of the random variable. For example, the expected value of rolling a six-sided die is 3.5,
because the average of all the numbers that come up converges to 3.5 as the number of
rolls approaches infinity The expected value is also known as the expectation, mathematical
expectation, mean, or first moment.
Example:

In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random
variable from its mean. Informally, it measures how far a set of (random) numbers are spread out from their
average value. Variance has a central role in statistics, where some ideas that use it include descriptive
statistics, statistical inference, hypothesis testing, goodness of fit, and Monte Carlo sampling. Variance is an
important tool in the sciences, where statistical analysis of data is common. The variance is the square of
the standard deviation, the second central moment of a distribution, and the covariance of the random
variable with itself.

.
Degeneracy in Transportation Problem in Operational Research
https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/quantitative-techniques-for-management-tutorial-
297/degeneracy-in-transportation-problems-9890.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_programming
http://www.ifp.illinois.edu/~angelia/ge330fall09_nlpkkt_l26.pdf

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