Abstract
We develop new techniques involving group symmetries and complex analysis to obtain exact solutions for the transition probabilities of the M/M/1/k queueing process. These methods are based on the underlying Markovian structure of these random processes and do not involve any generating functions, Laplace transforms, or advanced special functions. Our techniques exploit the intrinsic group symmetries for both the state spaces and the matrix generators of the Markov processes related to the M/M/1/k queue. These results complement and extend the previous transient solutions given by Takács (Introduction to the theory of queues. University texts in the mathematical sciences, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962). Much of the inspiration for this work comes from viewing this queueing process as a fundamental Markovian model for the dynamics of a bike sharing station. The exact transient analysis for a related stopped version of this process can be used to address fundamental decision-making issues for managing bike-sharing services.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Institute for Advanced Study for their hospitality and funding where this work was conceived and completed. This research began with our collective involvement in the IAS Summer Collaborators Program in July 2019 and concluded with the visit of the first author to IAS as a member of the school of mathematics from September 2020 to July 2021 during his sabbatical from Princeton University. Much of this work also served as a basis for a major part of the PhD dissertation of the second author, see Ekwedike [15]. Finally, the authors would also like to thank Alfred Nöel for his feedback and suggestions at the Institute for Advanced Study.
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Massey, W.A., Ekwedike, E., Hampshire, R.C. et al. A transient symmetry analysis for the M/M/1/k queue. Queueing Syst 103, 1–43 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11134-022-09849-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11134-022-09849-5