Queueing theory: past, present, and future

Excerpt

As QUESTA celebrates its 100’th volume, now is an opportune time to reflect upon the past, present, and potential future directions of the field. Queueing theory, broadly speaking, concerns the design and analysis of resource-constrained systems in which customers need to potentially wait for access to a resource. This paradigm arises in many applied settings, ranging from service and health operations to communications and computer systems to ride-sharing and job-matching platforms to organ exchange marketplaces. In view of the pervasiveness of queueing-type phenomena in applied settings, one can reasonably expect that queueing issues will continue to be studied for a long time to come, as they continue to arise as a first-order consideration in both ongoing and new problem environments. …