COMPARATIVE ANALYZE OF METHODS TO SOLVE THE BUS CREW SCHEDULING PROBLEM

Abstract

This work approaches the Bus Crew Scheduling Problem (BCSP), which aims to determine a set of workdays to the crews with the minimum operational cost, so that the vehicle scheduling could be performed. The constraints of this problem should comply with the labor agreement. In this paper it is presented and compared four different methodologies of columns generation for the BCSP, defining as these problems of Integer Linear Programming with binary variables. The first methodology consists of determining a time interval during which can happen the crew’s exchange. In the second methodology the journey have at least a minimum time length. In the third methodology the Chvátal’s heuristics is implemented. The fourth methodology presents the implementation of a hybrid method of columns generation for the BCSP. In this paper, comparative results from real-world problems are presented, showing the possibility of utilizing such methods in practical brazilian cases. Key-words: Crew scheduling, Drivers scheduling, Column generation.