Queuing Theory and its Application to the Optimum Number of ATM Machines Needed to Reduce Waiting Time of Customers in the Queue

Abstract

Time spent by customers to access a service from banks with single ATM facility is increasingly a major source of concern and justification on the rationale of such waiting. This also imposes a potential threat to customers’ services. In Cameroon, most commercial banks having a single ATM machine with large number of customers have cases where customers may not be attended to on time. The consequences of keeping customers in a queue for too long in order to get service can seriously affect business growth. In this study, the single server queuing models was used to analyze service efficiency of the Credit Communautaire D'Afrique (Community Credit of Africa) (CCA) bank at commercial Avenue Bamenda, Cameroon. Primary data was collected through observation and questionnaire methods at the bank over a ten days period to determine how to minimize the waiting time, expected service time, inter-arrival time and traffic intensity of customers in a queue. An M/M/1 method was considered where the arrival and service time of the customer were both exponentially distributed and with the implementation of a first come first serve. The result showed that increasing the number of ATM machines will reduce the waiting time of customers, overutilization of ATM and provide an optimal satisfaction of customers.