What is the Probability Distribution of Parking Requests in a Poisson Process?

In summary, the number of cars driving past a parking area in a one-minute time interval follows a Poisson distribution with mean lambda. The probability that an individual driver wants to park is p, and they make decisions independently. If one parking space is available and it takes one minute to reach the parking area, the probability that a space will still be available is (^lambda)e^{-lambda}/n!. The probability distribution of W, the number of drivers who wish to park during a one-minute interval, is derived by conditioning on N with P[W=k|N=n] = (^nC_k)p^k(1-p)^{n-k}, and P[W=k] is the expectation with respect to N.
  • #1
solerFF
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The number of cars driving past a parking area in a one-minute time interval has a Poisson distribution with mean lambda. The probability that any individual driver actually wants to park his or her car is p. Assume that individuals decide whether to park independently of one another.
a)If one parking place is available and it will take you one minute to reach the parking area,what is the probability that a space will still be available when you reach the lot? (Assume that no one leaves the lot during the one-minute interval.)

b)Let W denote the number of drivers who wish to park during a one-minute interval.Derive the probability distribution of W.

could anyone help me to solve this problem? I've no idea about this.
 
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  • #2
solerFF said:
The number of cars driving past a parking area in a one-minute time interval has a Poisson distribution with mean lambda. The probability that any individual driver actually wants to park his or her car is p. Assume that individuals decide whether to park independently of one another.
a)If one parking place is available and it will take you one minute to reach the parking area,what is the probability that a space will still be available when you reach the lot? (Assume that no one leaves the lot during the one-minute interval.)

b)Let W denote the number of drivers who wish to park during a one-minute interval.Derive the probability distribution of W.

could anyone help me to solve this problem? I've no idea about this.

Try conditioning on N, with

[tex]P[W=k|N=n] = (^nC_k)p^k(1-p)^{n-k}[/tex]

and P[W=k] is simply the expectation wrt N.
 

What is the Poisson distribution?

The Poisson distribution is a probability distribution that is used to model the number of times an event occurs in a given time interval or space. It is often used to analyze rare events that occur randomly, such as accidents or natural disasters.

How is the Poisson distribution different from other probability distributions?

The Poisson distribution is different from other probability distributions, such as the normal distribution, in that it is discrete rather than continuous. This means that the possible outcomes are whole numbers, rather than any value on a continuous scale.

What are the assumptions of the Poisson distribution?

The Poisson distribution assumes that the events occur randomly and independently of each other, and that the probability of an event occurring is the same for all intervals or spaces.

How do you calculate the mean and variance of the Poisson distribution?

The mean of the Poisson distribution is equal to the lambda parameter, which represents the average number of events in the given time interval or space. The variance is also equal to lambda.

How is the Poisson distribution used in real-world applications?

The Poisson distribution is commonly used in various fields such as finance, insurance, and healthcare to model events that occur randomly, such as loan defaults, insurance claims, or medical emergencies. It is also used in quality control to analyze the number of defective products in a batch.

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