Optimal decentralized queuing system with diversion: Using incentives to influence behavior

Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Publication Date

12-2016

Abstract

We are interested in the modeling of people's queueing behavior and influencing this behavior through the use of incentives. This setting is motivated by applications wherein a customer may choose to postpone his entry into a queue by accepting to take a so-called diversion, where this diversion is in some way more pleasant than waiting in the queue. The goal is thus to determine the minimal incentive to be provided by the queue organizing agent to entice users to take the diversion, to an extent sufficient to reduce the overall waiting time of the queue. We propose a formulation for this problem using stochastic dynamic programming. The goal is to determine the optimal strategy in terms of the incentive and service level so as to reduce overall waiting time while limiting the cost borne by organizing agent. We further propose a decentralized version of the model where the service agent and the organizing agent do not wish to share all the state information. We show that it is possible to ensure that the solution of the decentralized problem is as efficient as that of the centralized system through the use of transfer contracts between the two agents.

Keywords

contracts, queueing analysis, delays, stochastic processes, dynamic programming, resource management, process control

Discipline

Programming Languages and Compilers

Research Areas

Intelligent Systems and Optimization

Publication

Proceedings of the 55th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2016, Las Vegas, USA, December 12-14

First Page

1912

Last Page

1919

ISBN

9781509018376

Identifier

10.1109/CDC.2016.7798544

Publisher

IEEE

City or Country

Piscataway, NJ

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1109/CDC.2016.7798544

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