The Poisson distribution is a discrete distribution.

It is often used as a model for the number of events (such as the number of telephone calls at a business, number of customers in waiting lines, number of defects in a given surface area, airplane arrivals, or the number of accidents at an intersection) in a specific time period. It is also useful in ecological studies, e.g., to model the number of prairie dogs found in a square mile of prairie. The major difference between Poisson and Binomial distributions is that the Poisson does not have a fi ed number of trials. Instead, it uses the fi ed interval of time or space in which the number of successes is recorded. Parameters: The mean is . The variance is .

is the parameter which indicates the average number of events in the given time interval. Ex.1. On an average Friday, a waitress gets no tip from 5 customers. Find the pro a i!ity that she wi!! get no tip from " customers this Friday. The waitress averages 5 customers that leave no tip on Fridays: = 5. Random Variable : The number of customers that leave her no tip this Friday. We are interested in !" = #$. Ex. # $uring a typica! foot a!! game, a coach can expect %.# in&uries. Find the pro a i!ity that the team wi!! have at most 1 in&ury in this game. % coach can e&pect '.( in)uries : = '.(. Random Variable : The number of in)uries the team has in this game. We are interested in .

Ex. %. ' sma!! !ife insurance company has determined that on the average it receives ( death c!aims per day. Find the pro a i!ity that the company receives at !east seven death c!aims on a random!y se!ected day. !& ! #$ " * # !& $ +$ " ,.'-'+-# Ex. ). The num er of traffic accidents that occurs on a particu!ar stretch of road during a month fo!!ows a Poisson distri ution with a mean of *.). Find the pro a i!ity that !ess than two accidents wi!! occur on this stretch of road during a random!y se!ected month. !& % ($ " !& " ,$ & !& " *$ " ,.,,,.+,

Poisson distri ution examp!es

*. The number of road construction pro)ects that ta/e place at any one time in a certain city follows a oisson distribution with a mean of '. Find the probability that e&actly five road construction pro)ects are currently ta/ing place in this city. !,.*,,.*-$ (. The number of road construction pro)ects that ta/e place at any one time in a certain city follows a oisson distribution with a mean of #. Find the probability that more than four road construction pro)ects are currently ta/ing place in the city. !,..(#,,.$ '. The number of traffic accidents that occur on a particular stretch of road during a month follows a oisson distribution with a mean of #.+. Find the probability that less than three accidents will occur ne&t month on this stretch of road. !,.,*.#5#$ 0. The number of traffic accidents that occur on a particular stretch of road during a month follows a oisson distribution with a mean of #. Find the probability of observing e&actly three accidents on this stretch of road ne&t month. !,.,5(*(-$ 5. The number of traffic accidents that occur on a particular stretch of road during a month follows a oisson distribution with a mean of +... Find the probability that the ne&t two months will both result in four accidents each occurring on this stretch of road. !,.,,-.0+$ +. 1uppose the number of babies born during an .#hour shift at a hospital2s maternity wing follows a oisson distribution with a mean of + an hour. Find the probability that five babies are born during a particular *#hour period in this maternity wing. !,.*+,+('$ #. The university policy department must write3 on average3 five tic/ets per day to /eep department revenues at budgeted levels. 1uppose the number of tic/ets written per day follows a oisson distribution with a mean of ... tic/ets per day. Find the probability that less than si& tic/ets are written on a randomly selected day from this distribution. !,.*(.'.#$ .. The number of goals scored at 1tate 4ollege hoc/ey games follows a oisson distribution with a mean of ' goals per game. Find the probability that each of four randomly selected 1tate 4ollege hoc/ey games resulted in si& goals being scored. !.,,,,,50+$