DMP87 - Scheduling, Timetabling and Routing
Weekly Notes
Lecture 14, Fall 2008

Lecture March 27

We treated:

• Alternative Graph model for Robotic Cell (Exercise from Lecture 12, on March 6)

• School Timetabling (see Bibliography below)

• Course Timetabling (see Bibliography below)

The next lecture we will treat Sport Timetabling (sections 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4 of the textbook):

• Single Round Robin Tournaments (circle method and edge coloring approach).

• Double Round Robin Tournaments

• Balanced Tournament Designs

• Bipartite Tournaments (mutually orthogonal Latin squares)

From April 7, 2008 the schedule of the course changes to: Monday 8:15-10:00, Thursday 12:15-14:00.

The exam project has been launched on Friday 28th. Please, read the document from the Exam session of the Web Page. The groups are the following:

• Jacob Midtgaard-Olesen and Søren Korsholm Poulsen
• Jacob Aae Mikkelsen and Niels Hvidberg Kjeldsen
• Kajetan Blazej Kubik and Katarzyna Dabrowska
• Ralph Zitz and Thomas Sejr Jensen

Annotated Bibliography on Educational Timetabling

• D. de Werra, An introduction to timetabling, European Journal of Operational Research, 19(2), 151-162 (1985)
  

  It gives a formalization of the three models of educational timetabling (school, course, exam) with integer programming formulations and graph coloring formulations.

• A. Schaerf. A Survey of Automated Timetabling. Artificial Intelligence Review 13(2): 87-127 (1999)
  

  It describes the three models of educational timetabling with integer programming formulations from the paper above and a review of the solution methods.

• H. Arntzen and A. Løkketangen. A tabu search heuristic for a university timetabling problem. International Timetabling Competition (2003).
  

  On Page 3, it describes more in the details the construction heuristic for the example of course timetabling treated at the lecture.

• Liam T. G. Merlot, Natashia Boland, Barry D. Hughes, Peter J. Stuckey: A Hybrid Algorithm for the Examination Timetabling Problem. PATAT 2002: 207-231
  

  For an example of a two-stage algorithm arising from the hybridization of constraint programming and meta-heuristics.

• G.Lach, M.E.Lübbecke (2008). Curriculum based course timetabling: Optimal solutions to the Udine benchmark instances.. Tech. Rep. 9, TU Berlin, Institut für Mathematik.
  

  It provides mathematical formulation of many of the constraints found in course timetabling, moreover, using the algorithmic procedure sketched in the next paper it solves optimally very large instances.

• G.Lach, M.E.Lübbecke (2007). Optimal university course timetables and the partial transversal polytope. Tech. Rep. 45, TU Berlin, Institut für Mathematik. To appear in the proceedings of WEA2008.

• I. Blöchliger, N. Zufferey (2008). A graph coloring heuristic using partial solutions and a reactive tabu scheme Computers & Operations Research, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. 960-975.
  

  It describes the TabuCol and PartialCol algorithms that can be used for solving the feasibility problem heuristically

• O. Rossi-Doria, M. Samples, M. Birattari, M. Chiarandini, M. Dorigo, L. Gambardella, J. Knowles, M. Manfrin, M. Mastrolilli, B. Paechter, L. Paquete, T. Stützle (2003). A comparison of the performance of different metaheuristics on the timetabling problem. In E. Burke, P. Causmaecker (Eds.), Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling, vol. 2740 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 329-351, Springer Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
  

  It provides sketches of local search and metaheuristics for the example of course timetabling treated in the lecture.

Links:

• PATAT (Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling) (International Conference Series)

• The EURO Working Group on Automated Timetabling

• SaTT Scheduling and Timetabling Group

• ASAP Automated Scheduling, Optimization and Planning Group

• Timetabling Problem Database

• International Timetabling Competition

• EasyStaff (business company doing timetabling).