Reduction of a polling network to a single node

We consider a discrete-time tree network of polling servers where all packets are routed to the same node (called node 0), from which they leave the network. All packets have unit size and arrive from the exterior according to independent batch Bernoulli arrival processes. The service discipline of each node is work-conserving and the service discipline of node 0 has to be HoL-based, which is an additional assumption that is satisfied by, a. o., m(i)-limited service, exhaustive service, and priority disciplines. Let a type i packet be a packet that visits queue i of node 0. We establish a distributional relation between the number of type i packets in the network and in a single station system, and we show equality of the mean end-to-end delay of type i packets in the two systems. Essentially this reduces an arbitrary tree network to a much simpler system of one node, while preserving the mean end-to-end delay of type i packets.