To Wait or Not to Wait: The Theory and Practice of Ticket Queues

Ticket queues are prevalent in service industries. They enhance customer satisfaction by eliminating physical lines but may compromise efficiency. Existing studies offer mixed results on the cause and magnitude of such inefficiency. These results, however, are based on simplistic customer behaviors. Taking a holistic approach, we examine how realistic customer behaviors drive ticket queue performance. Our empirical studies reveal that (i) customers are capable of adapting their patience to the waiting context and (ii) they use dynamic updating to improve forecasting and decision making over time. Once we model these two behaviors, we find the ticket queue inefficiency is much smaller than the literature predicted. By testing and highlighting the central role of realistic customer behaviors, this paper advances our understanding on ticket queue theory and practice.