IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v64y2018i6p2650-2671.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Efficient Ignorance: Information Heterogeneity in a Queue

Author

Listed:
  • Ming Hu

    (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada)

  • Yang Li

    (CUHK Business School, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong)

  • Jianfu Wang

    (Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798)

Abstract

How would the growing prevalence of real-time delay information affect a service system? We consider a single-server queueing system where customers arrive according to a Poisson process and the service time follows an exponential distribution. There are two streams of customers, one informed about real-time delay and the other uninformed. The customers’ uninformed behavior may be due to information ignorance or rational behavior in the presence of an information fee. We characterize the equilibrium behavior of customers with information heterogeneity and investigate how the presence of a larger fraction of informed customers affects the system performance measures, i.e., throughput and social welfare. We show that the effects of growing information prevalence on system performance measures are determined by the equilibrium joining behavior of uninformed customers. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that throughput and social welfare can be unimodal in the fraction of informed customers. In other words, some amount of information heterogeneity in the population can lead to more efficient outcomes, in terms of the system throughput or social welfare, than information homogeneity. For example, under a very mild condition, throughput in a system with an offered load of 1 will always suffer if there are more than 58% of informed customers in the population. Moreover, it is shown that for an overloaded system with offered load sufficiently higher than 1, social welfare always reaches its maximum when some fraction of customers is uninformed of the congestion level in real time.

Suggested Citation

  • Ming Hu & Yang Li & Jianfu Wang, 2018. "Efficient Ignorance: Information Heterogeneity in a Queue," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2650-2671, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:64:y:2018:i:6:p:2650-2671
    DOI: 10.287/mnsc.2017.2747
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.287/mnsc.2017.2747
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.287/mnsc.2017.2747?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gad Allon & Achal Bassamboo, 2011. "The Impact of Delaying the Delay Announcements," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1198-1210, October.
    2. Senthil K. Veeraraghavan & Laurens G. Debo, 2011. "Herding in Queues with Waiting Costs: Rationality and Regret," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 13(3), pages 329-346, July.
    3. Guo, Pengfei & Zipkin, Paul, 2009. "The effects of the availability of waiting-time information on a balking queue," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 198(1), pages 199-209, October.
    4. Senthil Veeraraghavan & Laurens Debo, 2009. "Joining Longer Queues: Information Externalities in Queue Choice," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(4), pages 543-562, April.
    5. Pengfei Guo & Paul Zipkin, 2007. "Analysis and Comparison of Queues with Different Levels of Delay Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(6), pages 962-970, June.
    6. Refael Hassin & Ricky Roet-Green, 2017. "The Impact of Inspection Cost on Equilibrium, Revenue, and Social Welfare in a Single-Server Queue," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 804-820, June.
    7. Hassin, Refael, 1986. "Consumer Information in Markets with Random Product Quality: The Case of Queues and Balking," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1185-1195, September.
    8. Tingliang Huang & Gad Allon & Achal Bassamboo, 2013. "Bounded Rationality in Service Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(2), pages 263-279, May.
    9. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Improving Service by Informing Customers About Anticipated Delays," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 192-207, February.
    10. Edelson, Noel M & Hildebrand, David K, 1975. "Congestion Tolls for Poisson Queuing Processes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(1), pages 81-92, January.
    11. Erica L. Plambeck & Qiong Wang, 2013. "Implications of Hyperbolic Discounting for Optimal Pricing and Scheduling of Unpleasant Services That Generate Future Benefits," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(8), pages 1927-1946, August.
    12. Mirko Kremer & Laurens Debo, 2016. "Inferring Quality from Wait Time," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(10), pages 3023-3038, October.
    13. Naor, P, 1969. "The Regulation of Queue Size by Levying Tolls," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(1), pages 15-24, January.
    14. Shiliang Cui & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2016. "Blind Queues: The Impact of Consumer Beliefs on Revenues and Congestion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3656-3672, December.
    15. Laurens Debo & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2014. "Equilibrium in Queues Under Unknown Service Times and Service Value," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 38-57, February.
    16. Tingliang Huang & Ying-Ju Chen, 2015. "Service Systems with Experience-Based Anecdotal Reasoning Customers," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 24(5), pages 778-790, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pengfei Guo & Moshe Haviv & Zhenwei Luo & Yulan Wang, 2022. "Optimal queue length information disclosure when service quality is uncertain," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(5), pages 1912-1927, May.
    2. Dimitrios Logothetis & Antonis Economou, 2023. "The impact of information on transportation systems with strategic customers," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(7), pages 2189-2206, July.
    3. Rouba Ibrahim, 2018. "Sharing delay information in service systems: a literature survey," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 49-79, June.
    4. Shiliang Cui & Senthil Veeraraghavan, 2016. "Blind Queues: The Impact of Consumer Beliefs on Revenues and Congestion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3656-3672, December.
    5. Caner Canyakmaz & Tamer Boyaci, 2018. "Queueing systems with rationally inattentive customers," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-18-04_R1, ESMT European School of Management and Technology, revised 01 Oct 2020.
    6. Caner Canyakmaz & Tamer Boyaci, 2018. "Opaque queues: Service systems with rationally inattentive customers," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-18-04, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    7. Hassin, Refael & Roet-Green, Ricky, 2018. "Cascade equilibrium strategies in a two-server queueing system with inspection cost," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 267(3), pages 1014-1026.
    8. Jianfu Wang & Ming Hu, 2020. "Efficient Inaccuracy: User-Generated Information Sharing in a Queue," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4648-4666, October.
    9. Opher Baron & Xiaole Chen & Yang Li, 2023. "Omnichannel Services: The False Premise and Operational Remedies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 865-884, February.
    10. Qiao‐Chu He & Ying‐Ju Chen & Rhonda Righter, 2020. "Learning with Projection Effects in Service Operations Systems," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(1), pages 90-100, January.
    11. David Lingenbrink & Krishnamurthy Iyer, 2019. "Optimal Signaling Mechanisms in Unobservable Queues," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(5), pages 1397-1416, September.
    12. Czerny, Achim I. & Guo, Pengfei & Hassin, Refael, 2022. "Shall firms withhold exact waiting time information from their customers? A transport example," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 128-142.
    13. Zhongbin Wang & Jinting Wang, 2019. "Information heterogeneity in a retrial queue: throughput and social welfare maximization," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 131-172, June.
    14. Canbolat, Pelin G., 2020. "Bounded rationality in clearing service systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 282(2), pages 614-626.
    15. Pengfei Guo & Zhe George Zhang, 2013. "Strategic Queueing Behavior and Its Impact on System Performance in Service Systems with the Congestion-Based Staffing Policy," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 118-131, September.
    16. Alessandro Arlotto & Andrew E. Frazelle & Yehua Wei, 2019. "Strategic Open Routing in Service Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 735-750, February.
    17. Sezer Ülkü & Chris Hydock & Shiliang Cui, 2020. "Making the Wait Worthwhile: Experiments on the Effect of Queueing on Consumption," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1149-1171, March.
    18. Gregory DeCroix & Xiaoyang Long & Jordan Tong, 2021. "How Service Quality Variability Hurts Revenue When Customers Learn: Implications for Dynamic Personalized Pricing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 69(3), pages 683-708, May.
    19. Opher Baron & Antonis Economou & Athanasia Manou, 2022. "Increasing social welfare with delays: Strategic customers in the M/G/1 orbit queue," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(7), pages 2907-2924, July.
    20. Nur Sunar & Yichen Tu & Serhan Ziya, 2021. "Pooled vs. Dedicated Queues when Customers Are Delay-Sensitive," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3785-3802, June.

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:64:y:2018:i:6:p:2650-2671. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.