Two Measures for Describing Queue Behavior

This paper defines two finite time measures that describe the transient behavior of queuing systems and investigates their convergence properties in some detail. These measures are: (i) a utilization factor that gives the fraction of time during which the system is expected to be busy, and (ii) an effectiveness factor that gives the ratio of the lengths of time during which the system is expected to be busy and idle, respectively. For the sake of convenience, these are expressed relative to their steady-state values. Tables are provided for these two measures in special cases.