Abstract
In a Markovian, regenerative, or stationary network, the average sojourn times of customers in a sector of the network can often be obtained from a Little law. Specifically, a Little law for a service system says that the average sojourn time W of a customer in the system and the average queue length L of the system are related by L = λW, where λ is the average arrival rate of units to the system. This fundamental relation is a law of averages or law of large numbers when the quantities L, λ, W are “limits” of averages. It is also a law of expectations when the quantities are expected values. This chapter focuses on Little laws of averages, which are based on sample path analysis. The next chapter covers Little laws of expectations for stationary systems, which are based on Palm probability analysis.
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Serfozo, R. (1999). Little Laws. In: Introduction to Stochastic Networks. Applications of Mathematics, vol 44. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1482-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1482-3_5
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7160-4
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