Information Freshness in Service Queues With Strategic Customers

Jin Xu, Lingjie Duan, Biying Shou, Jianwei Huang

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

Abstract

We examine a scenario in which a service provider updates its queue length information to customers at a specific frequency. Customers decide whether to join the queue based on the most recent update. Our objective is to determine the optimal updating frequency that benefits both the service provider and customers. Using a two-dimensional continuous-time Markov process, we model the actual and announced queue length processes. By proving the identical distributions of these two processes under a Poisson updating scheme, we derive closed-form solutions for customers’ utility functions. Our findings demonstrate that customers adopt a generalized mixed-threshold strategy at equilibrium, and their certainty about whether to join the queue or balk does not always increase with fresher information. Furthermore, we reveal that due to customers’ different sensitivities to information freshness, system performance metrics such as throughput and total customer utility exhibit non-monotonic behavior in response to the updating frequency. Consequently, providing fresher information does not necessarily lead to improved system performance. To address this, we propose algorithms to determine the optimal updating frequency for each system performance metric and identify the conditions under which different updating frequencies are optimal. We demonstrate that any positive updating frequency can achieve customer utility no worse than the no-information system. Additionally, in systems with high customer arrival rates, updating with a positive updating frequency can improve throughput. Furthermore, we prove conditions under which a positive and finite updating frequency can yield higher throughput and total customer utility compared to real-time information systems. © The Author(s) 2024.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)205–225
JournalProduction and Operations Management
Volume34
Issue number2
Online published1 Sept 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2025

Funding

Jin Xu is supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 72301113); and in part by Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 2023AFB857). Lingjie Duan is supported in part by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 2 Grant with Award no. MOE-T2EP20121-0001; in part by SUTD Kickstarter Initiative (SKI) Grant with no. SKI 2021_04_07; and in part by the Joint SMU-SUTD Grant with no. 22-LKCSB-SMU-053. Biying Shou is supported by Hong Kong RGC/CRF Grant (C1143-20G), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72131010) and funding from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. Jianwei Huang is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 62271434), Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Program (Project JCYJ20210324120011032), Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (Project 2021B1515120008), Shenzhen Key Lab of Crowd Intelligence Empowered Low-Carbon Energy Network (No. ZDSYS20220606100601002), Shenzhen Stability Science Program 2023, the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, and Longgang District Shenzhen's \u201CTen Action Plan\u201D for Supporting Innovation Projects (No. LGKCSDPT2024002).

Research Keywords

  • Information Freshness
  • Queueing Games
  • Service Systems
  • Strategic Customer

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