An Interactive System for Extra-Urban Vehicle and Crew Scheduling Problems

Abstract

The problem of determining a feasible schedule of vehicles and crews, to cover the service requirements at minimum cost, lies at the core of operations management in mass transit agencies. Computer-aided systems have been regarded by company managers as potentially helpful tools for schedulers, aimed at achieving a number of profitable effects: to speed-up the time consuming manual planning process; to improve the quality of the schedules obtained; to perform “what-if” cost analyses with respect to changes in the timetable, cost parameters, driver regulations, depots locations and capacities; to increase the level of integration of the Management Information System.

The problem of determining a feasible schedule of vehicles and crews, which covers the service requirements at minimum cost, lies at the core of operations management in mass transit agencies. In this paper, an interactive computer-aided system for vehicle and crew scheduling problems is presented. The constraints and the cost function of the underlying model, as well as the solution methodology developed, are determined by the specific rules which apply to extra-urban mass transit transportation agencies in Italy. The problem is formulated through a mathematical programming model, decomposed in two stages and solved by means of a heuristic procedure. The main issues related to an application of the system described here are also discussed.