AN INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIALLY OPTIMAL POLICY MINIMIZING EXPECTED FLOW TIMES. Issue 2 (2nd March 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ross, Sheldon M.
• Is Part Of: Probability in the engineering and informational sciences. Volume 29:Issue 2(2015)
• Page Start: 147
• Page End: 151
• Publication Date: 2015-03-02
• Subjects: Probabilities -- Periodicals; Engineering -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; Information science -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; 519.202462
• DOI: 10.1017/S0269964814000266
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0269-9648

Abstract

Abstract : Consider n servers having different exponential service distributions. All servers are initially busy and there are m customers waiting in queue in an ordered line. A server becoming idle is offered to the first in line, if rejected it is then offered to the second, and so on. The objective of each person in line is to minimize their expected time until service completion. We give a simple approach for finding the optimal policy and also show that this policy also minimizes the expected sum of the times the customers spend in the system.