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Optimisation and Illumination of a Real-World Workforce Scheduling and Routing Application (WSRP) via Map-Elites

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Book cover Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XV (PPSN 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11101))

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Abstract

Workforce Scheduling and Routing Problems (WSRP) are very common in many practical domains, and usually have a number of objectives of interest to the end-user. Illumination algorithms such as Map-Elites (ME) have recently gained traction in application to design problems, in providing multiple diverse solutions as well as illuminating the solution space in terms of user-defined characteristics, but typically require significant computational effort to produce the solution archive. We investigate whether ME can provide an effective approach to solving WSRP, a repetitive problem in which solutions have to be produced quickly and often. The goals of the paper are two-fold. The first is to evaluate whether ME can provide solutions of competitive quality to an evolutionary algorithm in terms of a single objective function, and the second to examine its ability to provide a repertoire of solutions that maximise user choice. We find that very small computational budgets favour the EA in terms of quality, but ME outperforms the EA at larger budgets, provides a more diverse array of solutions, and lends insight to the end-user.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://graphhopper.com/.

  2. 2.

    https://openstreetmap.org/.

  3. 3.

    https://api.tfl.gov.uk/.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland, UK

    Neil Urquhart & Emma Hart

Authors
  1. Neil Urquhart
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  2. Emma Hart
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Neil Urquhart .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inria Saclay, Palaiseau, France

    Anne Auger

  2. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Carlos M. Fonseca

  3. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Nuno Lourenço

  4. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Penousal Machado

  5. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Luís Paquete

  6. Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

    Darrell Whitley

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Urquhart, N., Hart, E. (2018). Optimisation and Illumination of a Real-World Workforce Scheduling and Routing Application (WSRP) via Map-Elites. In: Auger, A., Fonseca, C., Lourenço, N., Machado, P., Paquete, L., Whitley, D. (eds) Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XV. PPSN 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11101. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99253-2_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99253-2_39

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99252-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99253-2

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