Applying the threshold accepting metaheuristic to curriculum based course timetabling

Martin Geiger ()

Annals of Operations Research, 2012, vol. 194, issue 1, 189-202

Abstract: The article presents a study of local search algorithms for timetabling problems, with the particular goal of providing a contribution to competition track 3 of the International Timetabling Competition 2007 (ITC 2007). In this track, a formulation of a curriculum based course timetabling has been published, and novel benchmark instances have been presented that allow the comparison of optimization approaches. Our heuristic local search procedure is based on the principles of Threshold Accepting, overcoming local optima by a deterministic acceptance of inferior solutions throughout the search runs. A stochastic neighborhood is proposed and implemented, randomly removing and reassigning events from the current solution. The overall concept has been incrementally obtained from a series of experiments, which we describe in each (sub)section of the paper. In conclusions, we successfully derived a potential candidate solution approach for the finals of track 3 of the ITC 2007, held in August 2008 in Montréal, Canada. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Keywords: Threshold accepting; Curriculum based course timetabling; International timetabling competition ITC 2007 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10479-010-0703-4

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