Mr. Cherry owns a gas station on a highway in Vermont. In the afternoon hours, there are, on average, 30 cars per hour passing by the gas station that would like to refuel. However, because there are several other gas stations with similar prices on the highway, potential customers are not willing to wait—if they see that all of the pumps are occupied, they continue on down the road.
The gas station has 3 pumps that can be used for fueling vehicles, and cars spend 4 minutes, on average, parked at a pump (filling up their tank, paying, etc.).
a. What is the offered load?
b. What is the implied utilization?
c. What is the capacity of the gas station (cars per hour)?
d. Use the table below to determine the probability that all three pumps are being used by vehicles?
e. How many customers are served every hour?
f. What is the utilization of the pumps?
g. Use the table above to determine how many pumps are required to capture at least 98% of the demand that drives by the station.