Timetabling County Cricket Fixtures Using a Form of Tabu Search

Abstract

This paper concerns a computer system which has been devised to timetable the county cricket matches in England. The context of the work is discussed and the many constraints and objectives described. Details of the solution method are given; it involves tabu search with a form of diversification dependent on the solution subcosts as well as the overall cost. Experiments are described which suggest that this type of diversification may have wide applicability to large, complex, multi-objective combinatorial problems.