Strategic Equilibria in Queues with Dynamic Service Rate and Full Information

Abstract

We consider the problem of customer equilibrium behavior of a single server Markovian queue with dynamic control of the service rate. Customers arrive according a Poisson procedure and the system administrator makes a service rate choice between a low and a high value according to a $T$-threshold dynamic service policy, where the decision for switching to the higher service rate is made when the number of customers exceeds T without any additional cost. We assume that customers are identical and they are making join decisions regarding the maximization of their expected net benefit, receiving a fixed reward for service completion and incurring a waiting cost. In addition, we consider the observable case of the model where customers are fully informed on the service policy and the queue length upon arrival.