Self-Regulation of an Unobservable Queue
研究了不可观测M/M/1队列中顾客的加入行为，提出一种基于随机优先级的调节方案，使均衡加入率与社会最优一致，对运营管理研究者有用。
We consider an unobservable M/M/1 queue where customers are homogeneous with respect to service valuation and cost per unit time of waiting. It is well known that left to themselves, in equilibrium, customers join the queue at a rate higher than is socially optimal. Hence, regulation schemes, under which the resulting equilibrium joining rate coincides with the socially optimal one, should be considered. We suggest a classification of regulation schemes based on a few desired properties and use it to classify schemes from the existing literature. To the best of our knowledge, none of the existing schemes possesses all of the properties, and in this paper we suggest such a scheme. Its novelty is in assigning random priorities to customers, prior to their decision whether to join or balk. We also introduce variations of this regulation scheme as well as others that are also based on randomization. The e-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2728 . This paper was accepted by Gad Allon, operations management.