Bayesian Dynamic Pricing in Queueing Systems with Unknown Delay Cost Characteristics

Bayesian Dynamic Pricing in Queueing Systems with Unknown Delay Cost Characteristics

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Article ID: iaor20132394
Volume: 15
Issue: 2
Start Page Number: 292
End Page Number: 304
Publication Date: Mar 2013
Journal: Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Authors: ,
Keywords: learning
Abstract:

The revenue management literature for queues typically assumes that providers know the distribution of customer demand attributes. We study an observable M/M/1 queue that serves an unknown proportion of patient and impatient customers. The provider has a Bernoulli prior on this proportion, corresponding to an optimistic or pessimistic scenario. For every queue length, she chooses a low or a high price, or turns customers away. Only the high price is informative. The optimal Bayesian price for a queue state is belief‐dependent if the optimal policies for the underlying scenarios disagree at that queue state; in this case the policy has a belief‐threshold structure. The optimal Bayesian pricing policy as a function of queue length has a zone (or, nested‐threshold) structure. Moreover, the price convergence under the optimal Bayesian policy is sensitive to the system size, i.e., the maximum queue length. We identify two cases: prices converge (1) almost surely to the optimal prices in either scenario or (2) with positive probability to suboptimal prices. Only Case 2 is consistent with the typical incomplete learning outcome observed in the literature.

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