Mumbai University > MECH > Sem 7 > Operations Research

Marks: 5 M

Year: May 2012

Customers in a queue generally behave in four ways:

1. Balking: A customer may leave the queue because the queue is too long and he has no time to wait, or there isn’t sufficient waiting space.

   This can be explained further. Imagine a customer comes, and sees there is no place in the waiting room. He then decides to not join the queue at all. Similarly, when a customer comes and sees how long the queue is, he decides to not join the queue at all.

   A typical example of such a scenario is at the train station where there usually are long lines to buy tickets. So the customer decides to not join the line at all.

2. Reneging: This occurs when a waiting customer leaves the queue due to impatience. He joins the queue (thinking it will move quickly), but gets impatient after some time and then decides to leave.

   The train station can be used as an example again for this, where people wait for some time in the line, but then get impatient and leave.

   Another example is in a supermarket. People get impatient waiting in line to check out, so many times people leave the baskets, and just walk out without buying anything.

3. Priorities: In certain applications, some customers are served before others regardless of their order of arrival. These customers have priority over others.

   Again using the example of a train station, such a scenario occurs when someone comes to buy a first class ticket; he is given priority over those who are buying a second class ticket. Such a scenario can also be seen in a bank, wherein a Platinum level customer gets preferential service over the Silver level customer, and so on.

4. Jockeying: Customers may jockey from one line to another, i.e. move from one line to another.

   This can be seen typically at supermarkets as well as train stations, where a person leaves the line he is standing in, and joins another line which appears to be shorter, or appears to be moving faster.