Effective search space control for large and/or complex driver scheduling problems

Raymond Kwan () and Ann Kwan

Annals of Operations Research, 2007, vol. 155, issue 1, 417-435

Abstract: For real life bus and train driver scheduling instances, the number of columns in terms of the set covering/partitioning ILP model could run into billions making the problem very difficult. Column generation approaches have the drawback that the sub-problems for generating the columns would be computationally expensive in such situations. This paper proposes a hybrid solution method, called PowerSolver, of using an iterative heuristic to derive a series of small refined sub-problem instances fed into an existing efficient set covering ILP based solver. In each iteration, the minimum set of relief opportunities that guarantees a solution no worse than the current best is retained. Controlled by a user-defined strategy, a small number of the banned relief opportunities would be reactivated and some soft constraints may be relaxed before the new sub-problem instance is solved. PowerSolver is proving successful by many transport operators who are now routinely using it. Test results from some large scale real-life exercises will be reported. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007

Keywords: Driver scheduling; Public transport; Set covering; Heuristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10479-007-0203-3

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