Gradient estimation for a class of systems with bulk services

Abstract

This article presents a comparison of different gradient estimators for the sensitivity of waiting times in a bulk server system. Inspired by a transportation network, our model is that of a bursty arrival process that waits at a “platform” until the server is available (representing a train or bus ready for departure). At the departure epochs, all waiting passengers leave at once. The departure process is assumed to be a renewal process and, based on a limiting result, the interdeparture times are approximated by truncated normal random variables. The interarrival times are assumed to be identically and independently distributed (i.i.d.), with a general distribution of bounded density. We a..