Dispatching to incentivize fast service in multi-server queues

Abstract

As a field, queueing theory predominantly assumes that the arrival rate of jobs and the system parameters, e.g., service rates, are fixed exogenously, and then proceeds to design and analyze scheduling policies that provide efficient performance, e.g., small response time (sojourn time). However, in reality, the arrival rate and/or service rate may depend on the scheduling and, more generally, the performance of the system. For example, if arrivals are strategic then a decrease in the mean response time due to improved scheduling may result in an increase in the arrival rate.

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