OCR S3 2006 January — Question 4

Exam BoardOCR
ModuleS3 (Statistics 3)
Year2006
SessionJanuary
TopicApproximating the Poisson to the Normal distribution
TypeSum of independent Poisson variables

4 A multi-storey car park has two entrances and one exit. During a morning period the numbers of cars using the two entrances are independent Poisson variables with means 2.3 and 3.2 per minute. The number leaving is an independent Poisson variable with mean 1.8 per minute. For a randomly chosen 10-minute period the total number of cars that enter and the number of cars that leave are denoted by the random variables \(X\) and \(Y\) respectively.
  1. Use a suitable approximation to calculate \(\mathrm { P } ( X \geqslant 40 )\).
  2. Calculate \(\mathrm { E } ( X - Y )\) and \(\operatorname { Var } ( X - Y )\).
  3. State, giving a reason, whether \(X - Y\) has a Poisson distribution.