Mathematical models describe a real-life phenomenon, using mathematical language. The model will not exactly be like the reality, but can be used to learn from and help us make decisions.
Congested road networks are a big problem in many countries. Building more roads is not always the best solution to solve this issue. One of the reasons for this is that drivers behave selfishly
Earlier, we have seen that layered queueing networks are found in manufacturing plants, as well as many other applications in society. The math behind such networks is much more challenging than traditional queueing networks.
We have seen that queueing networks can be a great aid to answering such design questions. In this article, we look more closely at what queueing networks in manufacturing plants look like. It turns out that they have a very distinctive feature in that they are layered.
One way to mitigate the consequences of drivers' selfish behavior, is by introducing tolls (or taxes) on certain parts of the road network. This is also known as road pricing.
Manufacturing plants convert raw material into a final product. Think of cars, where the production line consists of a large number of phases to put all the different parts together into a working car. Big machines in such a plant perform the processing steps in different phases, which often have to be done in a specific order.
