Abstract
Congestion and its uncertainty are big factors affecting customers decision to join a queue or balk. In a queueing system, congestion itself is resulted from the aggregate joining behavior of other customers. Therefore, the property of the whole group of arriving customers affects the equilibrium behavior of the queue. In this paper, we assume each individual customer has a utility function which includes a basic cost function, common to all customers, and a customer-specific weight measuring sensitivity to delay. We investigate the impacts on the average customer utility and the throughput of the queueing system of different cost functions and weight distributions. Specifically, we compare systems where these parameters are related by various stochastic orders, under different information scenarios. We also explore the relationship between customer characteristics and the value of information.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 409-432 |
Number of pages | 24 |
Journal | Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2009 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Management Science and Operations Research
- Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
- Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
- Statistics and Probability