Approximations for a Queueing Game Model with Join-the-Shortest-Queue Strategy

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a queueing system with load balancing and strategic customer behavior, deriving equilibrium and optimal strategies, and demonstrating their effectiveness through numerical comparisons.

Contribution

It introduces a mean field approximation for a queueing game with join-the-shortest-queue strategy and validates its accuracy for finite systems.

Findings

Mean field strategies closely approximate finite system behaviors

Equilibrium and socially optimal strategies differ in joining probabilities

Numerical results highlight the impact of system parameters

Abstract

This paper investigates a partially observable queueing system with $N$ nodes in which each node has a dedicated arrival stream. There is an extra arrival stream to balance the load of the system by routing its customers to the shortest queue. In addition, a reward-cost structure is considered to analyze customers' strategic behaviours. The equilibrium and socially optimal strategies are derived for the partially observable mean field limit model. Then, we show that the strategies obtained from the mean field model are good approximations to the model with finite $N$ nodes. Finally, numerical experiments are provided to compare the equilibrium and socially optimal behaviours, including joining probabilities and social benefits for different system parameters.