Customer Balking Behaviors in a Multi-server Queue with Synchronous Multiple Uninterrupted Vacations Under N-policy

Abstract

This paper studies the customers’ equilibrium and socially optimal balking behaviors in an M/M/c queue with synchronous multiple uninterrupted vacations under N-policy. Considering four cases where the information about the system is entirely/nearly observable or nearly/entirely unobservable, we obtain and compare the customers’ equilibrium and socially optimal balking strategies, set the pricing strategies and analyze the system manager’s benefits, respectively. It is shown that the pricing strategy varies under different information levels. What’s more, regardless of the information level, the best N-policy should be designed for social optimization. However, when the threshold N is pre-determined, disclosing the information of the servers’ status to customers is a better choice no matter the queue length is observable or not.