Experience from designing transport scheduling algorithms

Raymond Kwan
School of Computing, University of Leeds
R.S.Kwan @ leeds.ac.uk

Open Issues in Grid Scheduling Workshop, Oct 21-22, 03

Outline

Public transport scheduling

Optimisation issues

Discussion

Public transport service

Depot Operations & management

The Public

Routes Vehicle & Driver Timetables Operations Fares

Transport Operator

Payroll

Planning & Scheduling

Planning and scheduling

o o o Minimise operating costs Operator: one optimisation problem, all decisions are variables Solution designer: Sequential tasks Some decisions are fixed by earlier tasks Some decisions are left open for later tasks

Planning and scheduling tasks

Service and Timetable Planning Vehicle Scheduling Crew Scheduling Crew Rostering

Research & Development at Leeds

o o Span over 40 years (22 years myself) Algorithmic approaches - hueristics - integer linear programming - rule-based/knowledge-based - evolutionary algorithms - tabu search - constraint based methods - ant colony Numerous users in the UK bus and train industries

Parties involved in UK train timetabling

Strategic Rail Authority

Office of the Rail Regulator

Health and Safety Executive

Train Operating Companies

Track Operator

UK Train Timetables
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Train timetables generation

Three key types of decision variable Departure times Scheduled runtimes

Resource options at a station

Hard Constraints
o
o o

Headway: time gap between trains on the same track

Junction Margins: time gap between trains at a track crossing point No train collision!
On a track At a platform

Soft constraints
o (TOCs) Commercial Objectives
Preferred departure/arrival times Clockface times Passenger connections Even service Efficient train units schedule

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Bus Vehicle Scheduling

o o Selection and sequencing of trips to be covered by each bus Each link may incur idling or deadrun time

o
o

Minimise fleet size, idling time, deadrun time

Other objectives: e.g. preferred block size, route mixing

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Bus Vehicle Scheduling - FIFO, FILO

Arrivals

Departures FIFO for regular steady service FILO for end of peak

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Driver Scheduling - Vehicle work to be covered

Piece of work

0600

0742 S

0935 H

1110 H

1304 S

Vehicle 38

Time Location

( Relief opportunity )

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2-spell driver shift example

sign on at depot
Vehicle 1

meal break
Vehicle 2

sign off at depot

Vehicle 3

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More example potential shifts

Vehicle 1

Vehicle 2

Vehicle 3

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Some characteristics of vehicle and driver scheduling

o Jobs to be scheduled have precise starting and ending clock times Scheduling involves trying to get subsets of jobs to fit within their timings to be collectively served by a resource (vehicle or driver) Not the type of problem where jobs are queued to be served by a designated resource

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Driver Rostering
o To compile work packages for drivers e.g. A one-week rota
Wed S46 Thu S07
0512 - 1357 1201 - 1846

Mon S46 Tue S46

0512 - 1357 0512 - 1357

Fri S14
1350 - 1815

Sat
REST

Sun
REST

o o o

Rules on weekly rotas Drivers may take the rotas in rotation Optimise fairness across the packages subject to rules and standby requirements

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Multi-objectives what is optimality?

o Operators do not always try equally hard to achieve optimal operational efficiency

Union rules
Service reliability Problem at hand is not on the critical path

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Global optimisation?
o Automatic global optimisation is obviously impractical

Combining two successive tasks for optimisation are sometimes desirable, e.g.
Hong Kong: fixed size fleet, fixed peak time requirements, schedule buses & maximise offpeak service Sao Paolo: driver and vehicle tied schedules First (UK bus): ferry bus problems

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Better optimisation through intelligent integration of the scheduling tasks

o Sometimes superior results could be simply obtained where powerful optimisation algorithms fail
A more favourable scheduling condition could be achieved from the preceding scheduling task E.g. driver forced to take a break after a short work spell swap in the vehicle schedule to lengthen the work spell

Needs good vision from the human scheduler rule-based expert system to integrate the scheduling tasks?

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Scheduling for different service types

Different types of service may pose different levels of difficulty for scheduling (different algorithmic approaches?)

Urban commuting: high frequency, many stops

Sub-urban and rural: lower frequency, fewer stops Inter-city and provincial: long distance, few stops Some problems have to consider route and vehicle type compatibility

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Discussion

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