UNIT-6: QUEUING THEORY

Introduction:
Queuing theory deals with problems which involve queuing (or waiting). Before going to
queuing theory, one must understand two things in clear. They are service and customer or
element. Here customer or element represents a person or machine or any other thing, which
needs some service from servicing point. Service represents any type of attention to the
customer to satisfy his need.
In essence all queuing systems can be broken down into individual sub-systems consisting of
entities queuing for some activity (as shown below).

Figure 1: Queuing System Activities

For example,

1. Person going to hospital to get medical advice from the doctor is an element or a customer,
2. A person going to railway station or a bus station to purchase a ticket for the journey is a
customer or an element,
3. A person at ticket counter of a cinema hall is an element or a customer,
4. A person at a grocery shop to purchase consumables is an element or a customer,
5. A bank passbook tendered to a bank clerk for withdrawal of money is an element or a
customer,
6. A machine break down and waiting for the attention of a maintenance crew is an element
or a customer.
7. Vehicles waiting at traffic signal are elements or customers,
8. A train waiting at outer signal for green signal is an element or a customer

Queueing models and Classifications:

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.
In general queuing models are used to explain the descriptive behaviour 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. The various systems
can be evaluated through these aspects and the system, which offers the minimum total cost is
selected.

Queuing System (or) Process:

Queuing system can be completely described by:
• The input (Arrival pattern)
• The service mechanism or service pattern
• The queue discipline and
• Customer behaviour.
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.

Input Process
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.
The characteristics of arrival are shown in figure 3.
Input to the queuing system refers to the pattern of arrival of customers at the service facility.
We can see at ticket counters or near petrol bunks or any such service facility that the
customer arrives randomly individually or in batches. The input process is described by the
following characteristics nature of arrivals, capacity of the
system and behaviour of the customers.
(a) Size of arrivals: The size of arrivals to the service system is greatly depends on the
nature of size of the population, which may be infinite or finite. The arrival pattern
can be more clearly described in terms of probabilities and consequently the
probability distribution for inter- arrival times i.e. the time between two successive
arrivals or the distribution of number of customers arriving in unit time must be
defined.
(b) Inter-arrival time: The period between the arrival of individual customers may be
constant or may be scattered in some distribution fashion. Most queuing models
assume that some inter-arrival time distraction applies for all customers throughout
the period of study. It is true that in most situations that service time is a random
variable with the same distribution for all arrivals, but cases occur where there are
clearly two or more classes of customers such as a machine waiting for repair with a
different service time distribution. Service time may be constant or random variable.

Capacity of the service system

In queuing context, the capacity refers to the space available for the arrivals to wait before
taken to service. The space available may be limited or unlimited. When the space is limited,
length of waiting line crosses a certain limit; no further units or arrivals are permitted to enter
the system till some waiting space becomes vacant. This type of system is known as system
with finite capacity, and it has its effect on the arrival pattern of the system, for example a
doctor giving tokens for some customers to arrive at certain time and the present system of
allowing the devotees for darshan at Tirupathi by using the token belt system.
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 affect in losing a customer by the organization.
Always a lengthy queue indicates insufficient service facility and customer may not turn out
next time. For example, a customer who wants to go by train to his destination goes to
railway station and after seeing the long queue in front of the ticket counter, may not like to
join the queue and seek other type of transport to reach his destination.
(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 customers. 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, for example Petrol bunks, Cinema theatres, etc. A customer in one of the queues
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 go on changing from
time to time.

Service Mechanism or Service Facility

Service facilities are arranged to serve the arriving customer or a customer in the waiting line
is known as service mechanism.
Arriving customers may be asked to form a single line (Single queue) or multi line (multi
queue) depending on the service need. When they stand in single line it is known as Single
channel facility when they stand in multi lines it is known as multi-channel facility.
(i) Single channel queues: If the organization has provided single facility to serve the
customers, only one
unit can be served at a time, hence arriving customers form a queue near the facility. The next
element is drawn into service only when the service of the previous customer is over. Here
also depending on the type of service the system is divided into Single phase and Multi phase
service facility. In Single channel Single Phase queue, the customer enters the service zone,
and the facility will provide the service needed. Once the service is over the customer leaves
the system.
For example, Petrol bunks, the vehicle enters the petrol station. If there is only one petrol
pump is there, it joins the queue near the pump and when the term comes, get the fuel filled
and soon after leaves the queue. Or let us say there is a single ticket counter, where the
arrivals will form a queue and one by one purchases the ticket and leaves the queue.
(ii) Multi Channel queues: When the input rates increase, and the demand for the service
increases, the management will provide additional service facilities to reduce the rush of
customers or waiting time of customers. In such cases, different queues will be formed in
front of different service facilities. If the service is provided to customers at one service
centre, then it is known as Multi channel Single-phase system. In case service is provided to
customer in different stages or phases, which are in parallel, then it is known as multi-channel
multi-phase queuing system.

Queue discipline or Service discipline

When the customers are standing in a queue, they are called to serve depending on the nature
of the customer. The order in which they are called is known as Service discipline. There are
various ways in which the customer called to serve. They are:
(i) First In First Out (FIFO) or First Come First Served (FCFS): We are quite aware that
when we are in a queue, we wish that the element which comes should be served first, so that
every element has a fair chance of getting service. Moreover, it is understood that it gives a
good morale and discipline in the queue. When the condition of FIFO is violated, there arises
the trouble and the management is answerable for the situation.
(ii) Last in first out (LIFO) or Last Come First Served (LCFS): In this system, the
element arrived last will have a chance of getting service first. In general, this does not
happen in a system where human beings are involved. But this is quite common in Inventory
system. Let us assume a bin containing some inventory. The present stock is being consumed
and suppose the material ordered will arrive that is loaded into the bin. Now the old material
is at the bottom of the stock whereas fresh arrived material at the top. While consuming the
top material (which is arrived late) is being consumed. This is what we call Last come first
served). This can also be written as First In Last Out (FILO).
(iii) Service In Random Order (SIRO): In this case the items are called for service in a
random order. The element might have come first or last does not bother; the servicing
facility calls the element in random order
without considering the order of arrival. This may happen in some religious organizations but
generally it does not follow in an industrial / business system. In religious organizations,
when devotees are waiting for the darshan of the god man / god woman, the devotees are
picked up in random order for blessings. Sometimes we see that in government offices, the
representations or applications for various favors are picked up randomly for processing. It is
also seen to allocate an item whose demand is high and supply is low, also seen in the
allocation of shares to the applicants to the company.
(iv) Service By Priority: Priority disciplines are those where any arrival is chosen for service
ahead of some
other customers already in queue. In the case of Pre-emptive priority the preference to any
arriving unit is so high that the unit is already in service is removed / displaced to take it into
service. A non- pre-emptive rule of priority is one where an arrival with low priority is given
preference for service than a high priority item. As an example, we can quote that in a doctors
shop, when the doctor is treating a patient with stomach pain, suddenly a patient with heart
stroke enters the doctors shop, the doctor asks the patient with stomach pain to wait for some
time and give attention to heart patient. This is the rule of priority.
Transient State:

A system is said to be in ’transient state’ when its operating characteristics or behaviour are
dependent on time. This happens usually at initial stages of operation of the system, where its
behaviour is still dependent on the initial conditions. So when the probability distribution of
arrivals, waiting time and servicing time are dependent on time the system is said to be in
transient state.

Steady State:

The system will settle down as steady state when the rate of arrivals of customers is less than
the rate of service and both are constant. Hence, we can say that a steady state condition is
said to prevail when the behaviour of the system becomes independent of time. In the steady
state system, the probability distribution of arrivals, waiting time, and service time does not
depend on time.

Kendall’s Notations of Queuing Models:

Different models in queuing theory are classified by using special (or standard) notations
described initially by D.G.Kendall in 1953 in the form (A/B/c). Now in the literature of
queuing theory the standard format used to describe the main characteristics of parallel
queues is as follows:
A/B/c : N/K/FIFO
A: probability distribution of inter-arrival time (Markovian-Poisson)
B: probability distribution of service time (Markovian exponential)
c: Number of servers (single or multiple)
N: Queue capacity (finite or infinite)
K: Size of the population (finite or infinite)
FIFO: service discipline (First in first out)
Notations and Terminology:
Basic terminology and Notations of queuing system
 𝐌/𝐌/𝟏: ∞/∞/𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐎 Model
𝜆
Traffic intensity 𝜌 = 𝜇, Steady state probability of having n units in the system 𝑃𝑛 = 𝜌𝑛 (1 − 𝜌) and 𝑃0 = (1 − 𝜌)

Probability of server being busy 𝑃𝑤 = (1 − 𝑃0 ) = 𝜌

Expected (or average) number of customers in the system (customers in the line plus the customer being served)
∞
𝜌 𝜆
𝐿𝑠 = 𝐸(𝑛) = ∑ 𝑛𝑃𝑛 = =
1−𝜌 𝜇−𝜆
𝑛=1
 𝐌/𝐌/𝟏: 𝐍/∞/𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐎 Model
This model differs from the above model in the sense that the maximum number of customers in the system is limited to N. The various
equations of the model is:
𝐌/𝐌/𝐜: ∞/∞/𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐎 Model