Strategic behavior in queues with arrival rate uncertainty

Refael Hassin, Moshe Haviv and Binyamin Oz

European Journal of Operational Research, 2023, vol. 309, issue 1, 217-224

Abstract: This paper shows how to account for arrival rate uncertainty in the analysis of queueing models with strategic customer behavior. We consider a general queueing model with a Poisson arrival process whose rate is random, and realized once for the entire process. We show that the distribution of the arrival rate at arrival instants is the size-biased counterpart of the original distribution. In particular, the ASTA (arrivals see time averages) property does not hold but rather a rate-biased version of it which we define and coin by the term RASTA (Rate-biased ASTA). We show that the RASTA phenomenon plays a crucial role in the analysis of strategic behavior of customers who evaluate the consequences of the actions they take upon arrival. By studying such a system with a single server and strategic customers who decide whether to join or balk without observing the queue, we exemplify the importance of RASTA in deriving the equilibrium behavior.

Keywords: Applied probability; Unobservable queues; Nash equilibrium; Parameter uncertainty; Size-biased distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:309:y:2023:i:1:p:217-224

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2023.01.015

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