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The drivers of waiting time in a single-server queue system include all of the following EXCEPT:

Learning
True

A pooled (combining several lines into one line) queue system improves system performance by
hiring and adding more servers overall to the process. True False
During the two hours of the morning rush from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., 100 customers per hour arrive at the
coffee shop. The coffee shop has a capacity of 80 customers per hour. How long does the customer a |
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Given the following data at the drive-through of a bank, what is the average processing time from 8:06
to 8:36? Customer Arrival Time Service Time (minutes) 1 8:06 5 2 8:10 10 3 8:15 7 4 8:36 2 a) 1 |
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 Practice Problems: Waiting Lines

1) My Mufflers has just one mechanic who can install new mufflers at an average rate of 3 per
hour (or about 1 every 20 minutes), according to a negative exponential distribution. Customers
arrive at the shop @ average rate of 2 per hour, following a Poisson distribution. They are served on
a FCFS basis and come from a very large (almost infinite) population of possible buyers.
What are the operating characteristics of this system?

Single server single line

Capacity Utilization

Average # of units in system

Average time/customer in the system

Average # units waiting in line ( = Wq * )

Average time/customer in the waiting line

Probability of zero units in the system

So probability of # of cars (n) being more than 0 cars (k) in the system (k=0) = (λ/µ)0+1 = (2/3)0+1 = 0.66

And probability of n being more than 6 cars in the system (k=6) = (λ/µ)k+1 = (2/3)6+1 = 0.058

Finally,

And probability of average # of cars (n) being exactly k cars in the system (so n=k) = (1 – (λ/µ)) (λ/µ)n

So probability of average # of cars in system being exactly say 5 cars = (1-0.67) (0.67)5 = 0.046

2) A movie theater intends to open a ticket counter for evening shows at a local college cafeteria. 18 ticket buyers
come in per hour on average. The ticket counter can process 1 ticket buyer every 3 minutes on average. What
would be the:

a) Average # of customers in line?

b) Average time a customer spend in line?
c) Server idle time?
d) Probability of 10 customers in the system?

Answer:

a) Arrival rate =18/hr; Service rate µ=1 customer/3 min = 20/hr

Average # of customer in line Lq= λ2/[µ(µ- λ)] = 324/[20(20-18)] = 8.1 customers

b) Wq: average time spent waiting in line = λ /[µ(µ- λ)] = 18/[20(20-18)] = 0.45 hr

c) Utilization r = λ/µ = 18/20 = 0.90 customers.

Server idle time = 10% on average

d) Probability of ‘10’ customers in system = (1 – (λ/µ)) (λ/µ)n = (1-(18/20)) (18/20)10 = (0.10)(0.349)

= 0.0349
3) A car rental agency is determining how many service reps to hire in order to achieve an average waiting time of
no more than 20 min/customer. The expected arrival rate is 4.8 customers/hr, and the service rate is 1.5
customer/hr.

Arrival rate =4.8/hr; Service rate µ=1.5/hr

M (# of servers) = ?

So (implied) Capacity Utilization r = λ/µ = 4.8/1.5 = 3.20

Approach: Compute for Lq (Desired # of customers waiting in line) and then look up M (# of servers) for
given capacity utilization of 3.20 from table (“Infinite source values for Lq and P0 given λ /µ and M”),
attached.

(Desired) average waiting time Wq =< 20 min or 0.333hrs/customer

Therefore, Lq (Desired # of customers waiting in line) = Wq * = 0.333 * 4.8 = 1.6 customers
The desired average # of customers waiting should not exceed 1.6 customers.

From attached table, given r (that is λ/µ)=3.20, and a desired maximum Lq of 1.6,
M=4 for a Lq of 2.386 (> than 1.6) and M=5 for a Lq of 0.513 (< than 1.6),

So get 5 service reps

4) Early morning commuters stop by to pick up a latte and muffin at DDonuts. The average arrival rate is 12
customers/hr. That early in the morning, it’s just the shop owner who takes an average of 4 minutes to serve a
customer. Assume that arrivals are Poisson distributed, while arrivals are exponentially distributed.

a) What is the average number of customers being served at any time?

b) What is the average number of customers waiting in line?
c) What is the average time customers spend in the shop?
d) What is the probability of 8 customers being in the shop?
e) The owner wishes to cut down the system wait time to an average of 10 minutes or less, from the
current 20 min. How many servers need to be there in the mornings?

Ans. Single server, single line system

a) Arrival rate =12/hr; Service rate µ=15/hr (1/min)

(Utilization) Average # of customers being served (r) = λ/µ = 12/15 = 0.80 customers.

A capacity utilization of 0.80 implies that a) each server is servicing customers 80% of their time;b) that on
average 80% of servers are servicing, while 20% of servers are idle; and c) that at any given time there is a
0.80 probability that any randomly observed server is servicing a customer.

b) Average # of customer in line Lq= λ2/[µ(µ- λ)] = 144/[15(15-12)] = 3.2 customers

c) Average time a customer spends waiting + being serviced Ws = 1/(µ- λ) = 1/(15-12) = 0.33 hrs = 20 min approx.

d) Probability of 8 customers in the shop

 Probability of ‘n’ customers in system = (1 – (λ /µ)) (λ /µ)n
= (1-12/15) (12/15)8 = (0.2)(0.168) = 0.0336

e) Desired average time spent waiting in line (Wq) = 10 min or less = 0.1667 hr or less

Thus Desired average # of customers in line (Lq) = Wq * λ = 0.1667 * 12 = 1.999

Utilization = r = λ/µ = 12/15 = 0.80

From table “Infinite source values for Lq and P0 given λ /µ and M” (attached), for a table r of 0.80 and a
table Lq of 0.152 (look for table Lq ≤ desired Lq of 1.999), M = 2 servers. Note from the table that P0
(probability of zero customers waiting) = 42.9%, which means substantial idle time for the servers.
Table: Infinite Source Values for Lq and Po given λ /µ and M