Integrating Column Generation and Large Neighborhood Search for Bus Driver Scheduling with Complex Break Constraints

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Kletzander, Lucas, Mazzoli, Tommaso Mannelli, Musliu, Nysret, Van Hentenryck, Pascal
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Kletzander, Lucas
Mazzoli, Tommaso Mannelli
Musliu, Nysret
Van Hentenryck, Pascal
author_facet Kletzander, Lucas
Mazzoli, Tommaso Mannelli
Musliu, Nysret
Van Hentenryck, Pascal
contents The Bus Driver Scheduling Problem (BDSP) is a combinatorial optimization problem with the goal to design shifts to cover prearranged bus tours. The objective takes into account the operational cost as well as the satisfaction of drivers. This problem is heavily constrained due to strict legal rules and collective agreements. The objective of this article is to provide state-of-the-art exact and hybrid solution methods that can provide high-quality solutions for instances of different sizes. This work presents a comprehensive study of both an exact method, Branch and Price (B&P), as well as a Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) framework which uses B&P or Column Generation (CG) for the repair phase to solve the BDSP. It further proposes and evaluates a novel deeper integration of B&P and LNS, storing the generated columns from the LNS subproblems and reusing them for other subproblems, or to find better global solutions. The article presents a detailed analysis of several components of the solution methods and their impact, including general improvements for the B&P subproblem, which is a high-dimensional Resource Constrained Shortest Path Problem (RCSPP), and the components of the LNS. The evaluation shows that our approach provides new state-of-the-art results for instances of all sizes, including exact solutions for small instances, and low gaps to a known lower bound for mid-sized instances. Conclusions: We observe that B&P provides the best results for small instances, while the tight integration of LNS and CG can provide high-quality solutions for larger instances, further improving over LNS which just uses CG as a black box. The proposed methods are general and can also be applied to other rule sets and related optimization problems
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_02485
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Integrating Column Generation and Large Neighborhood Search for Bus Driver Scheduling with Complex Break Constraints
Kletzander, Lucas
Mazzoli, Tommaso Mannelli
Musliu, Nysret
Van Hentenryck, Pascal
Optimization and Control
Artificial Intelligence
The Bus Driver Scheduling Problem (BDSP) is a combinatorial optimization problem with the goal to design shifts to cover prearranged bus tours. The objective takes into account the operational cost as well as the satisfaction of drivers. This problem is heavily constrained due to strict legal rules and collective agreements. The objective of this article is to provide state-of-the-art exact and hybrid solution methods that can provide high-quality solutions for instances of different sizes. This work presents a comprehensive study of both an exact method, Branch and Price (B&P), as well as a Large Neighborhood Search (LNS) framework which uses B&P or Column Generation (CG) for the repair phase to solve the BDSP. It further proposes and evaluates a novel deeper integration of B&P and LNS, storing the generated columns from the LNS subproblems and reusing them for other subproblems, or to find better global solutions. The article presents a detailed analysis of several components of the solution methods and their impact, including general improvements for the B&P subproblem, which is a high-dimensional Resource Constrained Shortest Path Problem (RCSPP), and the components of the LNS. The evaluation shows that our approach provides new state-of-the-art results for instances of all sizes, including exact solutions for small instances, and low gaps to a known lower bound for mid-sized instances. Conclusions: We observe that B&P provides the best results for small instances, while the tight integration of LNS and CG can provide high-quality solutions for larger instances, further improving over LNS which just uses CG as a black box. The proposed methods are general and can also be applied to other rule sets and related optimization problems
title Integrating Column Generation and Large Neighborhood Search for Bus Driver Scheduling with Complex Break Constraints
topic Optimization and Control
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02485