First consider an M-M-K queue with servers, arrival rate , and service rate at each server. Assume so that a stationary distribution exists. Its population is a birth-death process with rates and . The equilibrium probabilities satisfy detailed balance
Thus the population process is a reversible Markov chain. In its time reversal of a continuous-time Markov chain, forward departures become upward jumps whose rate is the constant , independent of the state. They can be generated by a rate- Poisson process independent of the initial reversed state. Reversing time preserves the Poisson process law, proving the equilibrium departure process is Poisson with rate , the Burke theorem for a multi-server queue.
The same argument gives the departure component of quasireversibility needed for the tandem calculation: the present upstream population is independent of its entire past departure process. Indeed, these departures become future arrivals in the reversed chain, independent of its initial population. First check this on finite time windows, then extend to the full past. A Poisson output alone, without this independence, would not justify multiplying queue-empty probabilities.
Now let , where denotes the mean service time at passport control, so the service rate at each of its two servers is . The stationary distribution of the M-M-s queue with has normalizing sum
Hence its empty probability is . Its output feeds a stable M-D-1 queue with rate and deterministic service time . In a stationary work-conserving single-server queue, the busy fraction is the rate of completed work, , so the empty probability is .
The downstream stationary workload is a causal function of past upstream departures. For example, it is the limit of workloads constructed from arrivals in increasingly long finite past intervals; stability makes this stationary construction well defined. The backward independence just proved therefore makes the two present queue populations independent. Consequently
With walking time , the downstream arrival stream is the upstream departure stream shifted by . Its present workload depends only on departures up to time . The number walking at time zero is the number of departures in , which has Poisson distribution of mean and is independent of the earlier departures. The upstream present population is independent of both parts of its past departure stream. Thus the three empty events factor, giving
The factor is the empty probability of the deterministic-travel infinite-server stage. Both printed stability inequalities ensure the stationary calculations apply.
For the M-M-1 queue with Bernoulli feedback, assume . The number of service visits before departure is geometric on , with probabilities , independent of the independent exponential visit lengths. The transform of the total time actually being served is
Thus
This excludes the waiting between visits. A feedback completion changes the customer's position but not the number in the system. By exponential memoryless property, the latter process has births of rate and true deaths of rate while nonempty; unsuccessful completions are self-events. It is therefore an M/M/1 number process with effective service rate , giving
For positive equality is null recurrent, larger arrival rate is unstable, and admits no departure-based equilibrium.
To prove the output claim, state the relevant time reversal of a continuous-time Markov chain theorem: an equilibrium continuous-time chain satisfying detailed balance has the same reversed path law. In this reversible birth-death process, final departures are precisely downward jumps; time reversal turns them into upward jumps. Upward jumps are supplied by a state-independent Poisson clock of rate , so their process is Poisson. Hence the stationary final-departure process is Poisson of rate . This is the output conclusion of Burke theorem for the effective number process; it does not say the process of all service completions has that rate.
Quasireversibility Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
In equilibrium, a queue is quasireversible when its present state is independent of subsequent arrival times and preceding departure times, for each customer class. For an M-M-s queue, detailed balance and time reversal of a continuous-time Markov chain show that past departures become future arrivals generated independently of the present state. This backward independence is useful in tandem calculations where downstream occupancy is determined by earlier departures.