Real-Time Delay Estimation in Overloaded Multiserver Queues with Abandonments

We use heavy-traffic limits and computer simulation to study the performance of alternative real-time delay estimators in the overloaded GI/GI/s+GI multiserver queueing model, allowing customer abandonment. These delay estimates may be used to make delay announcements in call centers and related service systems. We characterize performance by the expected mean squared error in steady state. We exploit established approximations for performance measures with a non-exponential abandonment-time distribution to obtain new delay estimators that effectively cope with non-exponential abandonment-time distributions.