Simulation of Priority Queuing at TOTAL Petrol Filling Station in Makurdi Town Using SimEvents Toolkit

Abstract

The incessant flash fuel scarcity leading to long queues and prolong waiting time at the TOTAL petrol station along Kashim Ibrahim road in Makurdi town has called for an efficient operational management policy. This study carried out simulation of priority queuing process at the station using SimEvent toolkit in MATLAB software. Fieldwork at the station involved manual count of arriving vehicles and duration of service time of the pumps. It was used for estimating inter-arrival rates (veh/h) and service rate (veh/h) per server. Simulation model was developed using SimEvent toolkit which was simulated for experimental period of 360 minutes for the Do-Nothing Scenario on the Normal Queue (NQ) and demand split to a proposed Priority Queue (PQ) at 3%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% 25% and 30% of total demand. The split was based on assumed utility maximisation of motorist who may be willing to pay extra fare to be served earlier through the PQ in order to reduce waiting time and eliminate risk of waiting on queue by roadside and the stress of staying on long queues for long period. Results indicated significant reduction in waiting time on queue and queue length on the NQ as compared to the PQ. The optimised service delivery of the system was achieved at 80 – 85% demand on the NQ and 15 – 20% demand on the PQ. Adoption of the built model was therefore recommended for managers of the TOTAL petrol filling stations for optimum system performance and service delivery.