Equilibrium Arrivals to a Last-come First-served Preemptive-resume Queue

We consider a queueing system which opens at a given point in time and serves a finite number of users according to the last-come first-served discipline with preemptive-resume (LCFS-PR). Each user must decide individually when to join the queue. We allow for general classes of user preferences and service time distributions and show existence and uniqueness of a symmetric Nash equilibrium. Furthermore, we show that no continuous asymmetric equilibrium exists, if the population consists of only two users, or if arrival strategies satisfy a mild regularity condition. For an illustrative example, we implement a numerical procedure for computing the symmetric equilibrium strategy based on our constructive existence proof for the symmetric equilibrium. We then compare its social efficiency to that obtained if users are instead served on a first-come first-served (FCFS) basis.