Every day we experience the annoyance of having to queue. The phenomenon is becoming more prevalent in our increasingly congested and urbanised society. Not only the visible queues in traffic jams, airport check in desks and supermarkets, but the more common invisible queues caused by voice calls and data packets in optical and wireless channels. Queues cost us time, money and resources; so what is the solution to our greater demand for services than there are facilities? Queuing control plays a crucial role in manufacturing and communication networks around the world. This pioneering approach, using fuzzy control to solve queuing control problems, determines explicit solutions to various types of control in queuing systems. The bulk of results have been developed over the past decade and are presented here together for the first time.

21 detailed case studies demonstrate an efficient departure from classical techniques. Unique work creating a new Research and Development topic. Multidisciplinary approach that will benefit researchers and students throughout the fields of artificial intelligence, operations research, optimal control, Internet techniques, communications and traffic control industries. Equipped with an extensive bibliography for easy reference and scope for further study.

Existing practical problems, especially those that are unresponsive to conventional control techniques, are solved with the introduction of this novel approach. A systematic framework of the ‘fuzzy control of queuing networks’ is developed through each individual case.