Queueing systems with relocation of customers

The concept of customer relocation occurs in various industries. Customers relocate in the rental industry, where vendors can be substituted, and in hospitals, where patients move between wards to level the stress on the hospital’s staff. This article highlights the diverse nature of queueing systems with customer relocation and presents two Markov chain-based approaches for evaluating the systems’ behavior. We demonstrate the applicability of our models by applying them to three examples from the industry. The results show that validating these systems leads to transparent decision-making for the business owners and their customers.