Question:
In the "Forecasting Airport Passenger Arrivals" case problem in Chapter 15, the objective is to develop a forecasting model to predict daily airline passenger arrivals for 2-hour time segments from 4:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. for July at Berry International Airport (BEI). Such a forecasting model is necessary in order to determine how many security gates will be needed at the South concourse during each of the daily time segments for any day in July, the airport's busiest travel month. Use the forecast developed in the Chapter 15 case to perform this type of waiting line analysis to determine how many security checkpoints are needed during each time segment. Assume that as passengers arrive at the South concourse security gate they join a single line to have their boarding pass and identification checked at one of several stations. When passengers leave these stations they again form a single line and are approximately equally distributed among the security checkpoints by security personnel before going through the various detection machines. For July the airport plans to staff six security checkpoints for each 2-hour time segment from 4:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and then three checkpoints from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and two checkpoints from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Assume that the arrival rate at this point in the security system is Poisson distributed, with the forecasted passenger arrivals developed in the Chapter 15 case as the mean arrival rate. Further, assume that service times are exponentially distributed with a mean of 11.6 seconds. Determine whether the number of security checkpoints the airport plans to use for each 2-hour time segment is sufficient to keep passengers moving freely through the security system without excessive delays. If the current number of checkpoints is not sufficient, what is the likely result? If the planned system is not likely to be sufficient, determine the number of checkpoints that would be needed for each 2-hour segment in order for passengers to move quickly through the security checkpoints without excessive waiting times.