Author(s)

Mohammad Saidi-Mehrabad, Ebrahim Teimory, Ali Pahlavani

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This paper reviews classic approaches for modeling customers’ choice behavior in competitive facility planning problems. They are either deterministic or probabilistic and work by a utility function based on some factors whether customer-independent or dependent. This paper focuses especially on congestion, the most important factor in customer to service or fixed-server systems. Various behaviors which customers may divulge when they face with a congested facility are extensively studied. We also define a new congestion-sensitivity reaction which has not been considered in the literature. Relevant modeling approaches are proposed to formulate customers-sensitivity to congestion. An illustrative example is also given to analyze and compare the proposed approaches.

Competitive Planning Models, Customers’ Choice Behavior, Congestion, Waiting Time

M. Saidi-Mehrabad, E. Teimory and A. Pahlavani, "Modeling Customer Reactions to Congestion in Competitive Service Facilities," Journal of Service Science and Management, Vol. 3 No. 2, 2010, pp. 186-197. doi: 10.4236/jssm.2010.32024.