Many public healthcare systems struggle with excessive waiting lists for elective patient treatment. Different countries address this problem in different ways, and one interesting method entails a maximum waiting time guarantee. Introduced in Denmark in 2002, it entitles patients to treatment...

We consider a single-server queueing system with Poisson arrivals and generally distributed service times. To systematically control the workload of the queue, we define for each busy period an associated timer process, {R(t), t ≥ 0}, where R(t) represents the time remaining before the system...

This paper presents a discrete-time single-server finite-buffer queue with Markovian arrival process and generally distributed batch-size-dependent service time. Given that infinite service time is not commonly encountered in practical situations, we suppose that the distribution of the service...

This paper treats an M/G/1 retrial queue with non-persistent customers, where the server is subject to failure due to the negative arrivals. After a completion of a service or a repair, the server searches for the customers in the orbit or remains idle. By using embedded Markov chain technique...

By providing a free experience service, a service firm can attract more uninformed customers. However, it could reversely effect the delay-sensitive, informed customers’ decision. In this paper, we study a priority queueing system with free experience services. We study the customer behavior...

The equilibrium and socially optimal balking strategies are investigated for unobservable and observable single-server classical retrial queues. There is no waiting space in front of the server. If an arriving customer finds the server idle, he occupies the server immediately and leaves the...

Congestion is a major cause of inefficiency in air transportation. A question is whether delays during the arrival phase of a flight can be absorbed more fuel-efficiently in the future. In this context, we analyze Japan’s flow strategy empirically and use queueing techniques in order to gain...

A tandem queueing system with infinite and finite intermediate buffers, heterogeneous customers and generalized phase-type service time distribution at the second stage is investigated. The first stage of the tandem has a finite number of servers without buffer. The second stage consists of an...

We consider the problem of evaluating and constructing appointment schedules for patients in a health care facility where a single physician treats patients in a consecutive manner, as is common for general practitioners, clinics and for outpatients in hospitals. Specifically, given a...

Performance evaluation plays a key role in manufacturing system design and productivity improvement. Characterizing performance objectively is the first step. Inspired by the underlying structure of tandem queues, we have derived an approximate model to characterize the system performance. The...