Title: List-graph colouring for multiple depot vehicle scheduling

Authors: Benoit Laurent, Jin-Kao Hao

Addresses: Perinfo SA, 41 avenue Jean Jaures, Strasbourg 67100, France; LERIA, Universite d'Angers, 2 Boulevard Lavoisier, Angers 49045, Cedex 01, France. ' LERIA, Universite d'Angers, 2 Boulevard Lavoisier, Angers 49045, Cedex 01, France

Abstract: This article addresses a multiple depot vehicle scheduling problem (MDVSP) arising in public transportation. The general problem consists in assigning vehicles to trips while minimising the number of scheduled vehicles and the operational costs. The MDVSP considered here takes into account heterogeneous types of vehicles with complex relations among them. This special feature matches well situations encountered in practice, but makes the problem particularly difficult. We introduce a new formulation based on list-graph colouring, from which an iterative tabu search is developed for vehicle minimisation. The approach is assessed on seven real-world benchmarks and yields highly satisfactory results in terms of solution quality and computation time.

Keywords: ILS; iterated local search; list colouring; multiple depot vehicle scheduling; tabu search; public transport; vehicle assignment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMOR.2009.022883

International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research, 2009 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.228 - 245

Published online: 31 Jan 2009 *

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