An alternative approach to heavy-traffic limits for finite-pool queues

Abstract: We consider a model for transitory queues in which only a finite number of customers can join. The queue thus operates over a finite time horizon. In this system, also known as the $\Delta_{(i)}/G/1$ queue, the customers decide independently when to join the queue by sampling their arrival time from a common distribution. We prove that, when the queue satisfies a certain heavy-traffic condition and under the additional assumption that the second moment of the service time is finite, the rescaled queue length process converges to a reflected Brownian motion with parabolic drift. Our result holds for general arrival times, thus improving on an earlier result which assumes exponential arrival times.