Faculty Publications

On The Applicability Of Queueing Theory To Lock Capacity Analysis

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Transportation Research

Volume

12

Issue

3

First Page

175

Last Page

180

Abstract

Barge traffic congestion on U.S. inland waterways occurs primarily at locks. Lock capacity analysis must deal with estimation of delays at various traffic levels. The M/M/1 queueing model has been proposed for such analysis, but it is shown that lock operations do not correspond well to M/M/1 model assumptions and, further, that the model does a poor job of predicting delays. The assumptions of M/G/1 do correspond well with the operation of many single-chamber locks, and the delay predictions of this model agree well with simulation results. For two-chamber (parallel) locks, no exact queueing results are available. Calculated numerical values reveal that known upper and lower bounds on mean delays are not tight enough to be of practical use at the traffic levels of interest. © 1978.

Department

Department of Business

Original Publication Date

1-1-1978

DOI of published version

10.1016/0041-1647(78)90121-1

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