TRACS II: a hybrid IP/heuristic driver scheduling system for public transport

We discuss the driver scheduling problem in public transport and describe a combined integer linear programming/heuristic approach to its solution. The approach has been applied successfully in many operational and planning scenarios. Recent developments in the algorithms used allow the solution of very large bus and rail problems.     

Solving a manpower scheduling problem for airline catering using metaheuristics

We study a manpower scheduling problem with job time windows and job-skills compatibility constraints. This problem is motivated by airline catering operations, whereby airline meals and other supplies are delivered to aircrafts on the tarmac just before the flights take-off. Jobs (flights) must be serviced within a given time-window by a team consisting of a driver and loader. Each driver/loader has the skills to service some, but not all, of the airline/aircraft/configuration of the jobs. Given the jobs to be serviced and the roster of workers for each shift, the problem is to form teams and assign teams and start-times for the jobs, so as to service as many flights as possible. Only teams with the appropriate skills can be assigned to a flight. Workload balance among the teams is also a consideration. We present model formulations and investigate a tabu search heuristic and a simulated annealing heuristic approach to solve the problem. Computational experiments show that the tabu search approach outperforms the simulated annealing approach, and is capable of finding good solutions.     

Hybrid evolutionary optimization of the operation of pipeless plants

Pipeless plants are a new production concept in chemical engineering in which automated guided vehicles (AGVs) transport the substances in mobile vessels between processing stations. In the operation of such plants, decisions have to be made on the scheduling of the production, the assignment of the equipment and the routing of the AGVs that carry the vessels. The large number of interacting degrees of freedom prohibit the use of exact mathematical algorithms to compute optimal schedules. This paper describes the combination of an evolutionary scheduling algorithm with a simulation based schedule builder. The algorithm is tested on a real-life example and on a benchmark problem from the literature and yields considerably shorter makespans than a heuristic solution.     

Multifleet routing and multistop flight scheduling for schedule perturbation

Efficient and effective incidental scheduling techniques for schedule perturbation are essential to an airline carrier's operations. This research aims at developing a framework to assist carriers in fleet routing and flight scheduling for schedule perturbations in the operations of multifleet and multistop flights. The framework is based on a basic multifleet schedule perturbation model constructed as a timespace network from which strategic models are developed to research incidental scheduling. These network models are formulated as multiple commodity network flow problems. Lagrangian relaxation with subgradient methods accompanied by the network simplex method, a Lagrangian heuristic and a modified subgradient method are developed to solve the problems. A case study regarding the international operations of a major Taiwan airline carrier is presented.     

Approximation algorithms for two-machine flow shop scheduling with batch setup times

In many practical situations, batching of similar jobs to avoid setups is performed while constructing a schedule. This paper addresses the problem of non-preemptively scheduling independent jobs in a two-machine flow shop with the objective of minimizing the makespan. Jobs are grouped into batches. A sequence independent batch setup time on each machine is required before the first job is processed, and when a machine switches from processing a job in some batch to a job of another batch. Besides its practical interest, this problem is a direct generalization of the classical two-machine flow shop problem with no grouping of jobs, which can be solved optimally by Johnson's well-known algorithm. The problem under investigation is known to be NP-hard. We propose two O(n logn) time heuristic algorithms. The first heuristic, which creates a schedule with minimum total setup time by forcing all jobs in the same batch to be sequenced in adjacent positions, has a worst-case performance ratio of 3/2. By allowing each batch to be split into at most two sub-batches, a second heuristic is developed which has an improved worst-case performance ratio of 4/3. © 1998 The Mathematical Programming Society, Inc. Published by Elsevier Science B.V.     

A hybrid genetic algorithm for the job shop scheduling problem

This paper presents a hybrid genetic algorithm for the job shop scheduling problem. The chromosome representation of the problem is based on random keys. The schedules are constructed using a priority rule in which the priorities are defined by the genetic algorithm. Schedules are constructed using a procedure that generates parameterized active schedules. After a schedule is obtained a local search heuristic is applied to improve the solution. The approach is tested on a set of standard instances taken from the literature and compared with other approaches. The computation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Using a multi-agent approach to optimise the train coupling and sharing system

This paper discusses a multi-agent scheduling system using the example of the railway transport system train coupling and sharing (TCS). The scheduling system includes the planning of travel units and the optimisation of solutions. The planning process is implemented as an incremental anytime algorithm that is capable of integrating new task specifications into the ongoing planning process. The initial solution is then optimised by a simulated trading approach. Furthermore, the multi-agent approach is tested on a practical example. The operational parameters and boundaries of the TCS-system are changed to get a comparable rail operation schedule.     

Development of a Driver Duty Estimator

This paper reports research on an estimator of bus driver duties. The estimator simulates rules in the manual scheduling process; it produces the number of duties likely to be required in a driver schedule. The development of this system involved a series of learning processes, concerning knowledge acquisition and the solution of real problems. The paper describes how the knowledge of scheduling is formulated and built into the estimator.     

Time slack-based techniques for robust project scheduling subject to resource uncertainty

The resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) has been the subject of a great deal of research during the previous decades. This is not surprising given the high practical relevance of this scheduling problem. Nevertheless, extensions are needed to be able to cope with situations arising in practice such as multiple activity execution modes, activity duration changes and resource breakdowns. In this paper we analytically determine the impact of unexpected resource breakdowns on activity durations. Furthermore, using this information we develop an approach for inserting explicit idle time into the project schedule in order to protect it as well as possible from disruptions caused by resource unavailabilities. This strategy will be compared to a traditional simulation-based procedure and to a heuristic developed for the case of stochastic activity durations.     

A priority list based heuristic for the job shop problem

A priority list for the job shop scheduling problem is defined to be any permutation of a set of symbols where the symbol for each job appears as many times as the number of its operations. Every priority list can be associated in a natural way with a feasible schedule, and every feasible schedule arises in this way. Priority lists are therefore a representation of feasible schedules that avoid the problems normally associated with schedule infeasibility. As a result, the three ingredients of local search heuristics, namely picking initial starting schedules, constructing search neighbourhoods and computing makespans, become faster and easier when performed in the space of priority lists rather than in the space of feasible schedules. As an illustration of their usefulness, a priority list based simulated annealing heuristic is presented, which, although simple, is competitive with the current leading schedule based simulated annealing and tabu search heuristics.     

Minimizing maximum tardiness and number of tardy jobs on parallel machines subject to minimum flow-time

This paper considers the problems of scheduling jobs on parallel identical machines where an optimal schedule is defined as one that gives the smallest maximum tardiness (or the minimum number of tardy jobs) among the set of schedules with optimal total flow-time (the sum of the completion times of all jobs). We show that these problems are unary NP-Hard, develop lower bounds for these two secondary criteria problems, and describe heuristic algorithms for their solution. Results of a computational study show that the proposed heuristic algorithms are quite effective and efficient in solving these hierarchical criteria scheduling problems.     

Multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling using RCPSP and SAT solvers

This paper reports on a new solution approach for the well-known multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem (MRCPSP). This problem type aims at the selection of a single activity mode from a set of available modes in order to construct a precedence and a (renewable and non-renewable) resource feasible project schedule with a minimal makespan. The problem type is known to be NP-hard and has been solved using various exact as well as (meta-)heuristic procedures.The new algorithm splits the problem type into a mode assignment and a single mode project scheduling step. The mode assignment step is solved by a satisfiability (SAT) problem solver and returns a feasible mode selection to the project scheduling step. The project scheduling step is solved using an efficient meta-heuristic procedure from literature to solve the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP). However, unlike many traditional meta-heuristic methods in literature to solve the MRCPSP, the new approach executes these two steps in one run, relying on a single priority list. Straightforward adaptations to the pure SAT solver by using pseudo boolean non-renewable resource constraints has led to a high quality solution approach in a reasonable computational time. Computational results show that the procedure can report similar or sometimes even better solutions than found by other procedures in literature, although it often requires a higher CPU time.     

Multi-depot vehicle scheduling problems with time windows and waiting costs

The multi-depot vehicle scheduling problem with time windows (MDVSPTW) consists of scheduling a fleet of vehicles to cover a set of tasks at minimum cost. Each task is restricted to begin within a prescribed time interval and vehicles are supplied by different depots. The problem is formulated as an integer nonlinear multi-commodity network flow model with time variables and is solved using a column generation approach embedded in a branch-and-bound framework. This paper breaks new ground by considering costs on exact waiting times between two consecutive tasks instead of minimal waiting times. This new and more realistic cost structure gives rise to a nonlinear objective function in the model. Optimal and heuristic versions of the algorithm have been extensively tested on randomly generated urban bus scheduling problem (UBSP) and freight transport scheduling problem (FTSP). The results show that such a general solution methodology outperforms specialized algorithms when minimal waiting costs are used, and can efficiently treat the case with exact waiting costs.     

Minimizing total flow time in the single-machine scheduling problem with periodic maintenance

This paper deals with a single-machine scheduling problem with limited machine availability. The limited availability of machine results from periodic maintenance activities. In our research, a periodic maintenance schedule consists of several maintenance periods. Each maintenance period is scheduled after a periodic time interval. The objective is to find a schedule that minimizes the total flow time subject to periodic maintenance and nonresumable jobs. Some important theorems are proved for the problem. A branch-and-bound algorithm that utilizes several theorems is proposed to find the optimal schedule. We also develop a heuristic to solve large sized problems. In this paper, computational results show that the proposed heuristic is highly accurate and efficient.     

Single facility scheduling with multiple job classes

This paper considers a static single facility scheduling problem where jobs are divided into several mutually exclusive classes. The jobs in a given class need not be processed together. In addition to a known processing time for each job, there is a switching time involved which depends on the class of the job immediately preceding a job. A heuristic algorithm is proposed to find a minimum mean flow time schedule. The effectiveness of the proposed heuristic algorithm is empirically evaluated and found to indicate that the solutions obtained from this heuristic algorithm are often close to optimal.     

Iterative scheduling algorithms based on the subdivision of the solution space into domains

Iterative multiprocessor scheduling algorithms are considered. The iterative algorithms make it possible to solve scheduling problems for a wide class of computer architectures but are very intricate from the computational point of view. To simplify the iterative algorithms, we propose an approach to their construction based on the subdivision of the space of correct schedules into disjoint domains, namely, an algorithm for constructing domains is proposed, the operations of the schedule transformations closed within the domains are introduced, and a technique for cutting off domains is developed. The approach developed also makes it possible to construct parallel algorithms with a low traffic of the exchange between parallel processes.     

Scheduling in network flow shops

We consider the general problem of static scheduling of a set of jobs in a network flow shop. In network flow shops, the scheduler not only has to sequence and schedule but also must concurrently determine the process routing of the jobs through the shop. In this paper, we establish the computational complexity of this new class of scheduling problem and propose a general purpose heuristic procedure. The performance of the heuristic is analyzed when makespan, cycle time and average flow time are the desired objectives.This research has been supported by the UCLA Academic Senate Grant #95.     

Learning and forgetting effects on a group scheduling problem

This paper proposes to investigate learning and forgetting effects on the problem of scheduling families of jobs on a single machine to minimize total completion time of jobs. A setup time is incurred whenever the single machine transfers job processing from a family to another family. To analyze the impact of learning and forgetting on this group scheduling problem, we structure three basic models and make some comparisons through computational experiments. The three models, including no forgetting, total forgetting and partial forgetting, assume that the processing time of a job is dependent on its position in a schedule. Some scheduling rules and a lower bound are derived in order to constitute our branch-and-bound algorithm for searching an optimal sequence. In addition, an efficient and simply-structured heuristic is also built to find a near-optimal schedule.     

一类有时间窗口约束的多资源动态调度模型与方法

含时间窗口的多资源调度，是一个包括资源分配和时间窗口分配的两阶段优化过程。在初始调度方案执行过程中，由于新的任务需求的到达，需要对初始方案进行调整．以使整个调度方案最优。本针对这种情况，分析了该问题中的主要约束条件．建立了含时间窗口的多资源动态调度模型，给出了一种启发式迭代修改求解方法；并以含时间窗口的多机调度问题为例．对模型和算法进行了验证。