A hybrid Constraint Programming/Mixed Integer Programming framework for the preventive signaling maintenance crew scheduling problem

Shahrzad M. Pour, John H. Drake, Lena Secher Ejlertsen, Kourosh Marjani Rasmussen and Edmund K. Burke

European Journal of Operational Research, 2018, vol. 269, issue 1, 341-352

Abstract: A railway signaling system is a complex and interdependent system which should ensure the safe operation of trains. We introduce and address a mixed integer optimisation model for the preventive signal maintenance crew scheduling problem in the Danish railway system. The problem contains many practical constraints, such as temporal dependencies between crew schedules, the splitting of tasks across multiple days, crew competency requirements and several other managerial constraints. We propose a novel hybrid framework using Constraint Programming to generate initial feasible solutions to feed as ‘warm start’ solutions to a Mixed Integer Programming solver for further improvement. We apply this hybrid framework to a section of the Danish rail network and benchmark our results against both direct application of a Mixed Integer Programming solver and modelling the problem as a Constraint Optimisation Problem. Whereas the current practice of using a general purpose Mixed Integer Programming solver is only able to solve instances over a two-week planning horizon, the hybrid framework generates good results for problem instances over an eight-week period. In addition, the use of a Mixed Integer Programming solver to improve the initial solutions generated by Constraint Programming is shown to be significantly superior to addressing the problem as a Constraint Optimisation Problem.

Keywords: Transportation; Scheduling; Constraint programming; Mixed Integer Programming; Hybrid approaches (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221717307646
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:269:y:2018:i:1:p:341-352

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2017.08.033

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().