IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/expeco/v8y2005i2p117-144.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Joining a Queue or Staying Out: Effects of Information Structure and Service Time on Arrival and Staying Out Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Darryl Seale
  • James Parco
  • William Stein
  • Amnon Rapoport

Abstract

We study a class of single-server queueing systems with a finite population size, FIFO queue discipline, and no balking or reneging. In contrast to the predominant assumptions of queueing theory of exogenously determined arrivals and steady state behavior, we investigate queueing systems with endogenously determined arrival times and focus on transient rather than steady state behavior. When arrival times are endogenous, the resulting interactive decision process is modeled as a non-cooperative n-person game with complete information. Assuming discrete strategy spaces, the mixed-strategy equilibrium solution for groups of n=20 agents is computed using a Markov chain method. Using a 2 × 2 between-subject design (private vs. public information by short vs. long service time), arrival and staying out decisions are presented and compared to the equilibrium predictions. The results indicate that players generate replicable patterns of behavior that are accounted for remarkably well on the aggregate, but not individual, level by the mixed-strategy equilibrium solution unless congestion is unavoidable and information about group behavior is not provided. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Darryl Seale & James Parco & William Stein & Amnon Rapoport, 2005. "Joining a Queue or Staying Out: Effects of Information Structure and Service Time on Arrival and Staying Out Decisions," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 8(2), pages 117-144, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:117-144
    DOI: 10.1007/s10683-005-0872-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10683-005-0872-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10683-005-0872-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rapoport, Amnon & Stein, William E. & Parco, James E. & Seale, Darryl A., 2004. "Equilibrium play in single-server queues with endogenously determined arrival times," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 67-91, September.
    2. Naor, P, 1969. "The Regulation of Queue Size by Levying Tolls," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(1), pages 15-24, January.
    3. Holt, Charles A, Jr & Sherman, Roger, 1982. "Waiting-Line Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 280-294, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rapoport, Amnon & Stein, William E. & Mak, Vincent & Zwick, Rami & Seale, Darryl A., 2010. "Endogenous arrivals in batch queues with constant or variable capacity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1166-1185, December.
    2. Jesper Breinbjerg & Alexander Sebald & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2016. "Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: experimental evidence," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(3), pages 207-236, September.
    3. Delgado-Alvarez, Carlos A. & van Ackere, Ann & Larsen, Erik R & Arango-Aramburo, Santiago, 2017. "Managing capacity at a service facility: An experimental approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(1), pages 216-228.
    4. Moshe Haviv & Liron Ravner, 2021. "A survey of queueing systems with strategic timing of arrivals," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 163-198, October.
    5. Anna Conte & Marco Scarsini & Oktay Sürücü, 2014. "An Experimental Investigation into Queueing Behavior," Jena Economics Research Papers 2014-030, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    6. Alon, Tzvi & Haviv, Moshe, 2022. "Discrete-time strategic job arrivals to a single machine with waiting and lateness penalties," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(1), pages 480-486.
    7. Sakuma, Yutaka & Masuyama, Hiroyuki & Fukuda, Emiko, 2020. "A discrete-time single-server Poisson queueing game: Equilibria simulated by an agent-based model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(1), pages 253-264.
    8. Stein, William E. & Rapoport, Amnon & Seale, Darryl A. & Zhang, Hongtao & Zwick, Rami, 2007. "Batch queues with choice of arrivals: Equilibrium analysis and experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 345-363, May.
    9. Cary Deck & Erik O Kimbrough & Steeve Mongrain, 2014. "Paying for Express Checkout: Competition and Price Discrimination in Multi-Server Queuing Systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, March.
    10. Breinbjerg, Jesper, 2017. "Equilibrium arrival times to queues with general service times and non-linear utility functions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(2), pages 595-605.
    11. Otsubo, Hironori & Rapoport, Amnon, 2008. "Vickrey's model of traffic congestion discretized," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 873-889, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stein, William E. & Rapoport, Amnon & Seale, Darryl A. & Zhang, Hongtao & Zwick, Rami, 2007. "Batch queues with choice of arrivals: Equilibrium analysis and experimental study," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 345-363, May.
    2. Rapoport, Amnon & Stein, William E. & Mak, Vincent & Zwick, Rami & Seale, Darryl A., 2010. "Endogenous arrivals in batch queues with constant or variable capacity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1166-1185, December.
    3. Cary Deck & Erik O Kimbrough & Steeve Mongrain, 2014. "Paying for Express Checkout: Competition and Price Discrimination in Multi-Server Queuing Systems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-13, March.
    4. Maria Arbatskaya & Kaushik Mukhopadhaya & Eric Rasmusen, 2001. "The Parking Lot Problem," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-119, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
      • Maria Arbatskaya & Kaushik Mukhopadhaya & Eric Rasmusen, 2007. "The Parking Lot Problem," Working Papers 2007-04, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    5. Tingliang Huang & Gad Allon & Achal Bassamboo, 2013. "Bounded Rationality in Service Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 263-279, May.
    6. Moshe Haviv & Liron Ravner, 2021. "A survey of queueing systems with strategic timing of arrivals," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 99(1), pages 163-198, October.
    7. Conte, Anna & Scarsini, Marco & Sürücü, Oktay, 2015. "Does time pressure impair performance? An experiment on queueing behavior," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 538, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    8. Delgado-Alvarez, Carlos A. & van Ackere, Ann & Larsen, Erik R & Arango-Aramburo, Santiago, 2017. "Managing capacity at a service facility: An experimental approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 259(1), pages 216-228.
    9. Anouar El Haji & Sander Onderstal, 2019. "Trading places: An experimental comparison of reallocation mechanisms for priority queuing," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 670-686, November.
    10. Martin A. Lariviere & Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2004. "Strategically Seeking Service: How Competition Can Generate Poisson Arrivals," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 23-40, January.
    11. De Munck, Thomas & Chevalier, Philippe & Tancrez, Jean-Sébastien, 2023. "Managing priorities on on-demand service platforms with waiting time differentiation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    12. Sheng Zhu & Jinting Wang & Bin Liu, 2020. "Equilibrium joining strategies in the Mn/G/1 queue with server breakdowns and repairs," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 2163-2187, December.
    13. L D Smith & D C Sweeney & J F Campbell, 2009. "Simulation of alternative approaches to relieving congestion at locks in a river transportion system," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(4), pages 519-533, April.
    14. Refael Hassin, 2022. "Profit maximization and cost balancing in queueing systems," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 429-431, April.
    15. Balachandran, Kashi R. & Radhakrishnan, Suresh, 1996. "Cost of congestion, operational efficiency and management accounting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 237-245, March.
    16. Kyle Y. Lin, 2003. "Decentralized admission control of a queueing system: A game‐theoretic model," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(7), pages 702-718, October.
    17. Kyle Y. Lin & Sheldon M. Ross, 2003. "Admission Control with Incomplete Information of a Queueing System," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(4), pages 645-654, August.
    18. Fajardo, Val Andrei & Drekic, Steve, 2015. "Controlling the workload of M/G/1 queues via the q-policy," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(2), pages 607-617.
    19. Jesper Breinbjerg & Alexander Sebald & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2016. "Strategic behavior and social outcomes in a bottleneck queue: experimental evidence," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 20(3), pages 207-236, September.
    20. Platz, Trine Tornøe & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2017. "The curse of the first-in–first-out queue discipline," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 165-176.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:expeco:v:8:y:2005:i:2:p:117-144. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.