A decomposed metaheuristic approach for a real-world university timetabling problem

Patrick De Causmaecker, Peter Demeester and Greet Vanden Berghe

European Journal of Operational Research, 2009, vol. 195, issue 1, 307-318

Abstract: In this paper we present a decomposed metaheuristic approach to solve a real-world university course timetabling problem. Essential in this problem are the overlapping time slots and the irregular weekly timetables. A first stage in the approach reduces the number of subjects through the introduction of new structures that we call 'pillars'. The next stages involve a metaheuristic search that attempts to solve the constraints one by one, instead of trying to find a solution for all the constraints at once. Test results for a real-world instance are presented.

Keywords: Metaheuristics; Timetabling; Tabu; search; Decomposed; heuristic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:195:y:2009:i:1:p:307-318

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