The Relationship Between the Waiting Crowd and the Average Service Time

Abstract

In this paper, the relationship between the waiting crowd and the service time – the average duration to serve one single customer – in the context of vendor stands (e.g. food stands, concession stands or kiosks) is evaluated. Drawing from traditional analytic queuing theory, a distribution function for the service time that remains steady is generally used. This steady state assumption is questioned in this paper by using computer simulation, empirical observation and qualitative reason-ing. On the one hand, the impact of the amount of people waiting on the average duration of service time is examined. On the other hand, the effects of crowding on the choice of a customer are evaluated as well. Within this context different causal feedback relationships are identified that are expected to be of fundamental importance. The paper concludes that for the endogenization of the service time, the incorporation of these feedback relationships is key to obtain more accurate results.