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THE IMPACTS OF CUSTOMERS’ DELAY-RISK SENSITIVITIES ON A QUEUE WITH BALKING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2009

Pengfei Guo  and
Paul Zipkin
Pengfei Guo
Affiliation:
Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong Email: [email protected]
Paul Zipkin
Affiliation:
The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA Email: [email protected]
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , July 2009 , pp. 409 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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