Skip to content

Mean plus variance of an hour's total service time

Question

Customers reach a gift shop as a Poisson process averaging 77 per hour, and serving each one takes exactly 1010 minutes. Measuring time in hours, let TT be the total service time needed for all customers who arrive during one particular hour. Find E[T]+Var⁡(T)\mathbb{E}[T]+\operatorname{Var}(T).

Short answer

4936\tfrac{49}{36}. The number of arrivals NN is Poisson(7)\text{Poisson}(7) and T=N/6T=N/6 hours. Hence E[T]=76\mathbb{E}[T]=\tfrac76 and Var⁡(T)=736\operatorname{Var}(T)=\tfrac{7}{36}, which add to 4936\tfrac{49}{36}.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

See the hint and the full worked solution in the question bank (free account).

Open the worked solution

Lessons behind this question

Start with a free lesson: Expectation, Variance and Covariance is part of a free topic. Create a free account, no card needed, to read it in full with worked solutions.

Read it free