Customers' equilibrium balking strategies in an M/M/1 queue with variable service rate

Abstract

We consider a fully observable single-server Markovian queue with variable service rate, where the customers observe the queue length and the state of the server upon arrival. We assume that the arriving customers decide whether to join the system or balk based on a natural reward-cost structure. With considering waiting cost and reward, we study the balking behavior of the customers and derive the corresponding Nash equilibrium strategies for all customers. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.