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QU 4

Vehicles are passing through a toll gate at the rate of 70 per hour. The
average time to pass through the gate is 45 seconds. The arrival rate and
service rate follow a Poisson distribution. There is a complaint that the
vehicles wait for a long time. The authorities are willing to install one more
gate to reduce the average time to pass through the toll gate to 35 seconds
if the idle time is less than 9% and the average queue length through the
gate is more than 8 vehicles, check whether the installation of the second
gate is justified.
Soultion:
=

Arrival rate =

70
hr

Average time to pass through the gate = 45/sec


=

3600 80
=
45
hr

= Service time

70
= = =0.875
80

Waiting no of vehicles in the queue = Lq =

2
0.8752
=
=6.125 vehicles
1 10.875

Expected time to pass through the gate = 35 seconds


'

3600 102.85
=
35
hr

'=

70
=
=0.68
' 102.85

Percent of idle time =

1=32

Average queue length < 8 and the idle time >9 %


Therefore, the installation of the new gate is not justified

Explanation:
In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution is a discrete
probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of
events occurring in a fixed interval of time and/or space if these events occur
with a known average rate and independently of the time since the last
event. The Poisson distribution can also be used for the number of events in
other specified intervals such as distance, area or volume.
Queuing theory is the mathematical study of waiting lines, or queues. In
queuing theory a model is constructed so that queue lengths and waiting
times can be predicted. Queuing theory is generally considered a branch of
operations research because the results are often used when making
business decisions about the resources needed to provide a service. Single
queuing nodes are usually described using Kendall's notation in the form
A/S/C where A describes the time between arrivals to the queue, S the size of
jobs and C the number of servers at the node. Many theorems in queue
theory can be proved by reducing queues to mathematical systems known
as Markov chains.
In this question we are dealing with a single queue for which the arrival rate
and service rate both follow a Poisson distribution. It is proposed to add
another queue if the wait for the current queue is too much. The installation
of the other queue is justified if and only if the two conditions: idle time of
the servers is less than 9% and average no of customers in the queue is
more than 8 are met.
We start solving by initially calculating the traffic intensity -

. This is

calculated by dividing the arrival rate by the service rate.


Then we calculate the average number of customers waiting in the queue at
2

any given time using the formula -

1 . In the question this comes out to

be 6.125 which is approximately equal to 6. Thus, the first condition has


failed but we still carry on solving the question.
Now, we take the expected time to pass through the toll gate after the
installation of the second gate = 35 seconds. We transform this into an
appropriate form to compare it to the arrival rate, this comes out
102.85/hour.
Now, we calculate the new traffic intensity

'

which comes out to be 0.68.

Now, we find out the percent of idle time which we calculate to be 32%.
Thus, this condition is also violated as idle time is greater than 9%.
Thus, the installation of the second gate isnt justified as both the conditions
fail.

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