There is a variety of approaches developed by researchers to solve different instances of timetabling problems. During these studies different data formats are used to represent a timetabling problem instance and its solution, causing difficulties in the evaluation and comparison of approaches and sharing data. In this paper, a model for timetabling problems and a new data format for them based...

Agent technology promises possibilities for the design of distributed systems, the design of open systems and the reduction of information overload for the users. Timetabling applications must operate in heterogeneous environments at large organisations where users cannot be bothered with all the details influencing their work schedules. It is a domain where, at least at the system level, many ...

While mathematical optimization and operations research receive growing attention in the railway sector, computerized timetabling tools that actually make significant use of optimization remain relatively rare. SICS has developed a prototype tool for non-periodic timetabling that minimizes resource conflicts, enabling the user to focus on the strategic decisions. The prototype is called the Mar...

This paper discusses a series of recombination operators for the timetabling problem. These operators act upon a direct representation of the timetable and maintain the property of feasibility. That is that there are no conflicts and no overfilled rooms. Various approaches to solving the timetabling problem using evolutionary computing methods are first compared. The recombination operators are...

This paper presents STTL, a language for communicating, storing, and evaluating timetabling problems, instances, and solutions. An interpreter for STTL is freely available on the Internet. The paper also includes a case study of high school timetabling.

As an academic in the School of Computer Science at Queen’s University, a visiting researcher to the Automated Scheduling, Opimisation and Planning (ASAP) group within the School of Computer Science and IT at the University of Nottingham and Managing Director of eventMAP Limited, a university technological spin out company, the author is in a unique position to provide comments on both the prac...

University timetabling problems are a yearly challenging task and faced repeatedly each semester. The considered non-polynomial time (NP) combinatorial optimization (COP), which means that they can be solved through algorithms to produce the aspired optimal timetable. Several techniques have been used solve university problems, most of them use techniques. This paper provides comprehensive revi...

In the context of public transportation system, improving the service quality and robustness through minimizing the average passengers waiting time is a real challenge. This study provides robust stochastic programming models for train timetabling problem in urban rail transit systems. The objective is the minimization of the weighted summation of the expected cost of passenger waiting time, it...

The university course timetabling problem is a difficult optimisation problem due to its highly-constrained nature. Finding an optimal, or even a high quality, timetable is a challenging task, especially when resources (e.g., rooms and time slots) are limited. In the literature, many approaches have been studied to solve this problem. In this thesis, we investigate genetic algorithms to solve t...

Railway traffic now and in future faces ever-growing challenges. On the one hand, infrastructure measures must be planned and in the medium respectively long term corresponding operating programs have to be generated. On the other hand, in the short term economical and political reasons exert increasing influence on the requirements of timetabling as well. Hence, they can hardly be efficiently ...