Determining Number of Serving Points by Discrete Simulation

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an attempt to estimate the number of computer terminals required to issue export licences to waiting callers. The problem differs from classical queueing studies in that the arrival pattern is non-stationary, and the measure of performance used to judge the quality of service is the size of the remaining queue at closing time. A stimulation approach is used to evaluate the measures of performance for a given number of service counters. The simulation approach used consists of concatenated independent trials taken at half-hourly intervals. This approach enables a large number of working days to be simulated, thus increasing the reliability of the results.