UC Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies

In a queuing system that does not serve each customer immediately upon his arrival, a consumer will attempt to arrive at a time that will minimize the expected length of his wait. The consequences of such behavior are explored for a queue with scheduled service. The characteristics of such a system are then compared to one with bulk service, and it is found that scheduled service entails a lower expected waiting time than does bulk service except for very high values of the traffic density.