Aims and scope

Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications (QUESTA) is a well-established journal focusing on queueing theory. The models considered concern resource sharing in a wide sense, particularly within a network context, with probability theory being the main analytic tool.

QUESTA welcomes papers directly contained in the above scope as well as papers at the interface between queueing and adjacent areas. Specific topics covered by the journal are:

    Probabilistic modelling of queues, and their relation to Markov chains and processes, stationary processes, and point processes.
    Queueing network models inspired by operations management, operations research and engineering. 
    The analysis of networks in which users compete for scarce resources, and the connection with game theory. 
    The analysis of extreme events, and the connection with e.g. the actuarial sciences and risk theory.
    Models in which the network infrastructure is dynamic and randomly evolving, and the connection with stochastic geometry and random graph models.
    Advances in simulation methodology, e.g. in relation to rare event estimation and variance reduction, and the development of queueing-related computational techniques in general. 
    The connection between data and queues, covering the use of data to optimally control queues, the estimation of input parameters from workload observations, machine learning aspects of queueing, etc. 

The prospective areas of application include, but are not restricted to, production, storage and logistics, traffic and transportation systems, and computer and communication systems.

Apart from regular research papers, the journal also solicits short communications, surveys, and papers on future research directions.

Officially cited as: Queueing Syst.

Special Issue on Queueing Systems with Strategic Agents: Modeling, Analysis, and Control
Submission Date: 2025-02-28

Firms and platforms in many industries operate congestion‐prone systems that serve customers and/or rely on workers who act strategically, i.e., make self‐interested demand and supply decisions. Therefore, the operation and performance of such systems critically depend on the interplay of the decentralized decisions of the strategic agents involved. Accordingly, the study of queueing systems with strategic agents via game‐theoretic queueing models has enjoyed very fruitful activity for over 50 years, going back to the seminal paper by Naor (1969). Nevertheless, the rapid pace of innovation in business models, technology and data‐driven decision‐making models continues to create exciting and important novel research opportunities and challenges. The overarching objective of this Queueing Systems Special Issue is to showcase top‐quality papers that advance the state‐of‐the‐art along some of these directions.

We are particularly interested in papers that advance the state‐of‐the‐art in the modeling, analysis and/or control of queueing systems with strategic agents, i.e., customers, firms and/or servers. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) innovations on some of the following dimensions:

- Models of customer and server behavior: bounded rationality, risk preferences, empirically or experimentally validated behavior models; hybrid workforces (incl. human/machine servers).
- Models of market relationships: among servers, firms, and customers.
- Learning and decision‐making in models with parameter uncertainty.
- Decisions: design of service classes and allocation rules (queue disciplines, dynamic matching and routing); pricing and admission control; information provision; capacity level, mix and flexibility.
- Objectives: Equilibria under social optimization, profit/revenue maximization, fairness considerations and no control; related trade‐offs (price of anarchy, price of fairness).
- Analysis: Approximation methods for joint performance/equilibrium analysis and optimization (stochastic process approximations, mean‐field games).

We invite contributions to a wide variety of application areas, including healthcare, transportation, on-demand service platforms, omni‐channel retailing, telecommunications, etc.

We welcome contributions from researchers of any affiliation/primary background, including those in departments or schools of economics, business, computer science and engineering, and mathematics and statistics.

Submission Deadline for Initial Manuscript: February 28, 2025.

Review Process and Cycle Time:

- Each submitted manuscript will first be reviewed by the Editors and then assigned to referees.
- We target a four month review cycle time per round. This also applies to papers submitted before February 28, 2025 (e.g., submissions in August 2024 can expect a decision by December 2024).
- We anticipate that most accepted papers will undergo no more than two revisions.

Publication

- Every accepted article will be published online soon after its acceptance.
- We anticipate publication of the full issue in Fall 2026.