Title: Tabu algorithm for set partitioning: optimisation of football leagues

Authors: Lutfu Sagbansua

Addresses: Chair of Management Department, School of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Turgut Ozal University, Ayvalimh. 158. Cd. No.7, EtlikKecioren/Ankara, Turkey

Abstract: Set partitioning problems are known to be NP-hard, thus it requires massive amounts of times and efforts to solve them using linear programming and traditional algorithms. This study proposes to use a tabu algorithm for such problems. The proposed algorithm is applied to the 3rd level football leagues in Turkey. 54 teams competing in the league are divided into three categories randomly by the Turkish Football Federation. The proposed algorithm in this study aims to set up these categories with the goal of minimising the total amount of travelling, thus cost and time throughout the league. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm reduces the total travelling by a significant amount of 50%. The possible scenarios for alignment of the teams are suggested at the end of the study as a way of implementing the findings of this research.

Keywords: set partitioning; vehicle routing; tabu search; operations systems; heuristics; sport; league optimisation; football leagues; NP-hard; non-deterministic hard; polynomial-time hard; linear programming; traditional algorithms; Turkey; football teams; Turkish Football Federation; travel minimisation; travelling costs; travelling times; business; systems research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2013.050619

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2013 Vol.7 No.1, pp.51 - 60

Published online: 28 Nov 2013 *

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