We study a service system which does not have the capability of monitoring and disclosing its real-time congestion level. However, the customers can observe and post their observations online, and future arrivals can take into account such user-generated information when deciding whether to go to the facility. We perform pairwise comparisons of the shared, full, and no queue length information structures in terms of social welfare. Perhaps surprisingly, we show that the shared queue length information may provide higher social welfare than full queue length information when the entry cost to the service facility falls into some ranges, and the shared and full queue length information always generates higher social welfare than no queue length information. Therefore, the discrete disclosure of congestion through user-generated sharing can lead to as much, or even higher, social welfare, as the continuous stream of real-time queue length information disclosure or no queue length information disclosure at all. These results imply that a little inaccurate shared queue length information can go a long way and that it may be more socially beneficial to encourage the sharing of user-generated information among customers than to provide them with full queue length information.
Event Period
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Seminar: Information Inaccuracy: User-Generated Information Sharing in a Queue
4 Oct 2018
11:00am - 12:30pm
Room 7-208, 7/F, Lau Ming Wai Academic Building