International Timetabling Competition A Hybrid Approach

This work arises from the research of the Metaheuristics Network on the University Course Timetabling Problem. In a first phase straightforward implementations of different metaheuristics were compared on a common local search framework [4]. In a second phase problem specific knoweldge was exploited and several alternatives for local search and metaheuristics were considered. Many possibilities to combine different components in a hybrid algorithm arose and a large experimental analysis that involved about 1185 configurations identified the most promising algorithm. This report describes this algorithm which was submitted to the International Timetabling Competition and the experimental methodology used to select it among many alternatives.