The availability of uni‐directionally patrolled stations

Discusses the maintenance of n identical stations uni‐directionally patrolled by a maintenance operative. The time to travel between adjacent stations is a random variable and the time to repair a broken‐down station is also a random variable. Assumes that the breakdowns at each station occur randomly in running time and that only a proportion of attempted repairs is successful. Shows that all the important characteristics of the system – waiting time, response time, availability – depend on the probability, denoted by α,that a station is found in the failed state. Gives a procedure for computing this probability.