Real‐time delay announcement under competition

Internet-based technology enables firms to disseminate real-time delay information delay-sensitive customers. We study how such announcements impact service providers in a competitive environment with two who compete for market share. model the providers' strategies based on an endogenous timing game, investigating that emerge equilibrium. determine shares under various game outcomes by analyzing continuous-time Markov chains, which capture customers' joining decisions, and developing novel computational technique analyze intractable asymmetric Join-the-Shortest Queue system, providing bounds shares. find only lower capacity provider announces its intermediate system loads highly imbalanced capacities. However, most parameter settings, mere presence of competitor induces both announce delays equilibrium, leaving customers better off average. relate our findings single-provider announcement literature discussing competition providers, firms,