Input format

The first argument to the functions queue_step, lag_step and wait_step is a vector of arrival times. For example:

library(queuecomputer)
library(dplyr)

## 
## Attaching package: 'dplyr'

## The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
## 
##     filter, lag

## The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
## 
##     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

arrivals <- cumsum(rexp(100))

head(arrivals)

## [1] 1.525615 2.103393 4.336572 4.881591 5.962795 6.560221

service <- rexp(100)

departures <- queue_step(arrivals = arrivals, service = service)

print(departures, n = 6)

## # A tibble: 100 x 6
##   arrivals     service departures       waiting system_time server
##      <dbl>       <dbl>      <dbl>         <dbl>       <dbl>  <int>
## 1 1.525615 0.532873564   2.058489  0.000000e+00   0.5328736      1
## 2 2.103393 1.431064236   3.534457 -2.220446e-16   1.4310642      1
## 3 4.336572 0.027583597   4.364155  1.457168e-16   0.0275836      1
## 4 4.881591 0.421497493   5.303088  0.000000e+00   0.4214975      1
## 5 5.962795 0.775030551   6.737825  1.110223e-16   0.7750306      1
## 6 6.560221 0.009298149   6.747123  1.776045e-01   0.1869027      1
## # ... with 94 more rows

Resourcing schedule

The resourcing schedule is specified with either a non-zero natural number, a server.stepfun or a server.list object. Use a non-zero natural number when the number of servers does not change over time. The server.stepfun specifies a step function to indicate how many servers are available throughout the day. The computation speed for queue_step() is much faster when using a server.stepfun rather than a server.list input for the servers argument.

We create a server.stepfun object with the as.server.stepfun function.

# Zero servers available before time 10
# One server available between time 10 and time 50
# Three servers available between time 50 and time 100
# One server available from time 100 onwards
resource_schedule <- as.server.stepfun(c(10,50,100), c(0, 1, 3, 1))

resource_schedule

## $x
## [1]  10  50 100
## 
## $y
## [1] 0 1 3 1
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "list"           "server.stepfun"

departures <- queue_step(arrivals = arrivals, service = service, servers = resource_schedule)

print(departures, n = 6)

## # A tibble: 100 x 6
##   arrivals     service departures  waiting system_time server
##      <dbl>       <dbl>      <dbl>    <dbl>       <dbl>  <int>
## 1 1.525615 0.532873564   10.53287 8.474385    9.007258      1
## 2 2.103393 1.431064236   11.96394 8.429480    9.860545      1
## 3 4.336572 0.027583597   11.99152 7.627366    7.654950      1
## 4 4.881591 0.421497493   12.41302 7.109930    7.531428      1
## 5 5.962795 0.775030551   13.18805 6.450224    7.225255      1
## 6 6.560221 0.009298149   13.19735 6.627829    6.637127      1
## # ... with 94 more rows

The server.list object is a list of step functions which represent each server, the range is \(\{0,1\}\), where 0 represents unavailable and 1 represents available and the knots represent the times where availability changes.

The as.server.list function is used to create a server.list object.

# Server 1 is available before time 10.
# Server 2 is available between time 15 and time 30.
# Server 3 is available after time 10. 
as.server.list(list(10, c(15,30), 10), c(1,0,0))

## [[1]]
## Step function
## Call: stats::stepfun(times[[i]], y)
##  x[1:1] =     10
## 2 plateau levels =      1,      0
## 
## [[2]]
## Step function
## Call: stats::stepfun(times[[i]], y)
##  x[1:2] =     15,     30
## 3 plateau levels =      0,      1,      0
## 
## [[3]]
## Step function
## Call: stats::stepfun(times[[i]], y)
##  x[1:1] =     10
## 2 plateau levels =      0,      1
## 
## attr(,"class")
## [1] "list"        "server.list"

Setting up a queue network

It is simple to set up a chain of queueing elements with queuecomputer. Suppose passengers must walk to a queue, then wait for service and then wait for their bags.

library(queuecomputer)
library(dplyr)

set.seed(500)

n <- 100

arrivals <- cumsum(rexp(n))
service_l <- rexp(n, 0.8)
service_q <- rexp(n, 0.5)
arrivals_b <- cumsum(rexp(n, 0.8))

# The queue elements can be computed one by one. 

departures_1 <- lag_step(arrivals, service_l)
departures_2 <- queue(departures_1, service = service_q, servers = 2)
departures_3 <- wait_step(departures_2, arrivals_b)

# Or the queue elements can be chained together with the %>% operator. 

departures <- lag_step(arrivals, service_l) %>% queue_step(service = service_q, servers = 2) %>% wait_step(arrivals_b)

all(departures == departures_3)

## [1] TRUE

# Plot densities for this tandem queueing network

colours <- rainbow(4)
plot(density(arrivals, from = 0), 
  col = colours[1], xlim = c(0, 220), ylim = c(0, 0.015), 
  main = "Density plot")
lines(density(departures_1, from = 0), col = colours[2])
lines(density(departures_2, from = 0), col = colours[3])
lines(density(departures_3, from = 0), col = colours[4])
legend(150,0.012, legend = c("Start walk",
    "Finish walk",
    "Finish service", 
    "Pick up bag"),
    col = colours, lwd = 1, cex = 0.8
)

Using the queuecomputer package

Anthony Ebert

2017-11-17

Introduction

Input format

Resourcing schedule

Setting up a queue network