What is the average rate of success?
The average rate of success refers to the average number of successes that occur over a particular interval in a Poisson experiment. We might be interested in the number of phone calls received in an hour by a receptionist. Suppose she received 1 phone call per hour on average. If we treated this as a Poisson experiment, then the average rate of success over a 1-hour period would be 1 phone call. Note, however, that our experiment might involve a different unit of time. Suppose we focused on the number of calls during a 30-minute time period. Then, the average rate of success would be 0.5 calls per half hour. Similarly, if we focused on a 2-hour time period, the average rate of success would be 2 calls per 2 hours.
