Queuing theory

• Queue- Aggregation of items awaiting a service.

It can be people, cars in a service station,
components awaiting machining, telephone calls,
aeroplanes etc.
• Queuing models deals with construction of
mathematical models to enable predictions
about how the system can work more efficiently
to deal with demand for service.
• Queues form when rate of arrival of items
requiring service is greater than the service rate.
 Elements in a queue
• Queuing system is composed of:

• Arrivals queue service outlet

• Arrivals- We only consider arrivals of discrete items.
• Queue – what happens between arrival and service. How
are served, it can be first come first served, last in last out,
or urgency method such as in hospitals
• Service – time taken to be served. It can be a constant time
or it can vary with service. The service time can be reduced
with better training, more service providers, more and
equipments etc and all this at extra cost.
• The organisation should consider the cost of reducing the
service time with the benefits to be realised.
• Outlet- How do the items leave after being
served. Are there any delays as they exit that
can cause delay in service to others.
• The queuing system – the entire process from
when a person/item arrives until served.
 Types of queues
• Simple queues with single service point
• Multiple queues with multiple service points
(ATMs)
• Single queues with multiple service points
(Bank halls).
• Multiple queues with single service points
(server with many PCs.)
 Arrival rate
• Arrivals are assumed to be random and to
follow an Poisson distribution (a type of a
discrete binomial distribution). i.e. arrivals are
discrete such as0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ; they can not be
continuous.
 Service rate
• The time taken to serve can be constant but can
also vary as per the service. For example,
consultation time can vary as per illness.
• It follows a negative exponential distribution as
shown below:

Probability
of being
served

0 Service time
• The probability for short service time is high
while the probability of higher service time is
low.
• The arrival rate is represented by the greek
letter λ. For example if customers arrive at the
rate of 50 customers per hour then λ= 50
• The service rate is represented by the greek
letter μ. For example an ATM can service 5
customers for every 20 minutes. Service rate
per hour μ = 5/20*60= 15
 Assumptions made when dealing with
Simple queues
• It is a simple queue with 1 service time.
• The items are served as per first come first served.
• Queue has infinite capacity – it can be as big as possible
• Arrivals are random and follows a poisson distribution
• No simultaneous arrivals
• Service time follows a negative exponential distribution.
• There are discrete items from an infinite population of
potential items
• There is service discipline and queues are followed.
• Traffic intensity is less than 1. Traffic intensity is the
average arrival rate
Average Service rate
and it is represented by the greek letter ρ= λ/μ.
 Formulas
• Traffic intensity (average utilisation rate) = λ /μ

• Average number of items in queue when there is a

queue (length of queue):
Lq= λ2/ μ(μ - λ).
• Average number of items in system:
Ls= λ/(μ – λ)
Average waiting time in the queue
Wq= λ/ μ(μ – λ)
Average waiting time in the system =
Ws= 1/(μ – λ)
 Probabilities
• Probability of queuing on arrival (probability that
the server is busy) =λ/μ
• Probability of not queuing on arrival (probability
that the server is idle)
= (1 – λ/μ)
• Probability that there are n objects in the queue =
(1 –λ/μ ) (λ/μ) n+1
• Probability that there are n objects in the system
= (1 –1/μ )(1/μ) n
•
 Example 1
• Customers arrive at a sales counter manned by 1
person at the rate of 20 per hour. The time required to
serve a customer is has an exponential distribution
with a mean of 100 seconds. Find the average waiting
time of a customer.
Solution
• Arrival rate = λ= 20 customers per hour
• Service rate= μ= 3600/100=36 customers per hour.
• Average waiting time= Wq= λ/ μ(μ - λ)= 20/(36(36-20)=
125 seconds
• Average waiting time in system=Ws=1/(μ – λ)=1/(36-
20)=225seconds
 Example 2
• An airlines organisation has one reservation clerk on
duty in its local branch at any given time. The clerk
handles information regarding passenger reservations
and flight timings. Assume that the number of
customers arriving during any given time period is
poison distributed with an arrival rate of eight per hour
and that the reservations clerk can serve a customer in
six minutes on an average which is exponentially
distributed.
i) What is the probability that the clerk is idle?
ii) What is the average time a customer spends in the
system?
iii) What is the average length of the queue?
 Solution
Service rate = 60/6=10
i) Probability the system is idle= (1 – λ/μ)
= (1-8/10)=0.2
ii) Average time a customer spends in the
system = Ws= 1/(μ – λ)= 1/(10-8)=30 minutes
iii) Average length of the queue = Lq= λ2/ μ(μ - λ)
= 8*8/(10(10-8))= 64/20= 3.2 customers
 Example 3
• Arrivals at a telephone booth are considered to follow a
poisson distribution with an average time of 10 minutes
between one arrival and the next. The length of a phone
call is exponentially distributed with a mean of 6 minutes.
i) What is the probability that a person arriving at the booth
will have to wait?
ii) What is the average length of the queues that form.
iii) Calculate the probability of having 2 people in the queue
 Practice questions
• Self service in a cafeteria takes an average of 8
minutes per customer and is slower than the
attendant rate which takes 6 minutes per customer.
The manager of the cafeteria wants to calculate the
average number of customers in the cafeteria, the
average time that each customer spends waiting for
service. Assuming that customers arrive at the rate
of 5 customers per hour, determine if there is need
to change the system to the attendant type if
waiting time for the customer in the queue should
not be more than 13 minutes.
• A fertiliser company distributes its products by
trucks loaded at its only loading station. Both
company trucks and contractors trucks are used for
this purpose. It was found out that on average every
5 minutes one truck arrived and the average loading
time was 3 minutes. 40% of the trucks belong to the
contractors. Making suitable assumptions,
determine:
• i) the probability that a truck has to wait
• ii) the waiting time of a truck that waits
• iii) The expected waiting time of the contractors
trucks before being loaded per day.