IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v256y2017i3p685-695.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A column generation approach to high school timetabling modeled as a multicommodity flow problem

Author

Listed:
  • Dorneles, Árton P.
  • de Araújo, Olinto C.B.
  • Buriol, Luciana S.

Abstract

School timetabling is a classic optimization problem that has been extensively studied due to its practical and theoretical importance. It consists in scheduling a set of class-teacher meetings in a predetermined period of time, satisfying requirements of different types. Given the combinatorial nature of this problem, solving medium and large instances of timetabling to optimality is a challenging task. When resources are tight, often it is difficult to find even a feasible solution. Several techniques have been developed in the literature to tackle the high school timetabling problem. Since the use of exact methods, as mathematical programming techniques, are considered impracticable to solve large real world instances, metaheuristics and hybrid metaheuristics are the most used solution approaches. In this paper we propose a multicommodity flow model for the high school timetabling problem. In addition, we apply Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition to the proposed model, propose a column generation algorithm, and present experimental results on well known instances of the problem. The results show that the lower bounds obtained through our approach are tight and can be generated faster than previous approaches reported in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorneles, Árton P. & de Araújo, Olinto C.B. & Buriol, Luciana S., 2017. "A column generation approach to high school timetabling modeled as a multicommodity flow problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(3), pages 685-695.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:256:y:2017:i:3:p:685-695
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2016.07.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221716305392
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2016.07.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nelishia Pillay, 2014. "A survey of school timetabling research," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 218(1), pages 261-293, July.
    2. Gerhard Post & Samad Ahmadi & Sophia Daskalaki & Jeffrey Kingston & Jari Kyngas & Cimmo Nurmi & David Ranson, 2012. "An XML format for benchmarks in High School Timetabling," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 385-397, April.
    3. Gerhard Post & Jeffrey Kingston & Samad Ahmadi & Sophia Daskalaki & Christos Gogos & Jari Kyngas & Cimmo Nurmi & Nysret Musliu & Nelishia Pillay & Haroldo Santos & Andrea Schaerf, 2014. "XHSTT: an XML archive for high school timetabling problems in different countries," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 218(1), pages 295-301, July.
    4. Ingmar Steinzen & Vitali Gintner & Leena Suhl & Natalia Kliewer, 2010. "A Time-Space Network Approach for the Integrated Vehicle- and Crew-Scheduling Problem with Multiple Depots," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(3), pages 367-382, August.
    5. E. Andrew Boyd, 1994. "Fenchel Cutting Planes for Integer Programs," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 42(1), pages 53-64, February.
    6. Haroldo Santos & Eduardo Uchoa & Luiz Ochi & Nelson Maculan, 2012. "Strong bounds with cut and column generation for class-teacher timetabling," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 194(1), pages 399-412, April.
    7. ., 2008. "Instant Information," Chapters, in: Information Revolutions in the History of the West, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. George B. Dantzig & Philip Wolfe, 1960. "Decomposition Principle for Linear Programs," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 8(1), pages 101-111, February.
    9. Drexl, Andreas & Salewski, Frank, 1997. "Distribution requirements and compactness constraints in school timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 193-214, October.
    10. Gerhard Post & Luca Gaspero & Jeffrey H. Kingston & Barry McCollum & Andrea Schaerf, 2016. "The Third International Timetabling Competition," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 239(1), pages 69-75, April.
    11. Marco E. Lübbecke & Jacques Desrosiers, 2005. "Selected Topics in Column Generation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 53(6), pages 1007-1023, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Saviniec, Landir & Santos, Maristela O. & Costa, Alysson M., 2018. "Parallel local search algorithms for high school timetabling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(1), pages 81-98.
    2. Ceschia, Sara & Di Gaspero, Luca & Schaerf, Andrea, 2023. "Educational timetabling: Problems, benchmarks, and state-of-the-art results," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 1-18.
    3. P. Solano Cutillas & D. Pérez-Perales & M. M. E. Alemany Díaz, 2022. "A mathematical programming tool for an efficient decision-making on teaching assignment under non-regular time schedules," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 2899-2942, July.
    4. Fonseca, George H.G. & Santos, Haroldo G. & Carrano, Eduardo G. & Stidsen, Thomas J.R., 2017. "Integer programming techniques for educational timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(1), pages 28-39.
    5. Khodakaram Salimifard & Sara Bigharaz, 2022. "The multicommodity network flow problem: state of the art classification, applications, and solution methods," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-47, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saviniec, Landir & Santos, Maristela O. & Costa, Alysson M., 2018. "Parallel local search algorithms for high school timetabling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(1), pages 81-98.
    2. Ceschia, Sara & Di Gaspero, Luca & Schaerf, Andrea, 2023. "Educational timetabling: Problems, benchmarks, and state-of-the-art results," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 1-18.
    3. Emir Demirović & Nysret Musliu, 2017. "Modeling high school timetabling with bitvectors," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 252(2), pages 215-238, May.
    4. Johnes, Jill, 2015. "Operational Research in education," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(3), pages 683-696.
    5. Ogbe, Emmanuel & Li, Xiang, 2017. "A new cross decomposition method for stochastic mixed-integer linear programming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 487-499.
    6. François Clautiaux & Cláudio Alves & José Valério de Carvalho & Jürgen Rietz, 2011. "New Stabilization Procedures for the Cutting Stock Problem," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 530-545, November.
    7. Omid Shahvari & Rasaratnam Logendran & Madjid Tavana, 2022. "An efficient model-based branch-and-price algorithm for unrelated-parallel machine batching and scheduling problems," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 589-621, October.
    8. Ibrahim Muter & Tevfik Aytekin, 2017. "Incorporating Aggregate Diversity in Recommender Systems Using Scalable Optimization Approaches," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 405-421, August.
    9. Perumal, Shyam S.G. & Lusby, Richard M. & Larsen, Jesper, 2022. "Electric bus planning & scheduling: A review of related problems and methodologies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 301(2), pages 395-413.
    10. Kaixiang Zhu & Lily D. Li & Michael Li, 2021. "School Timetabling Optimisation Using Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm Based on a Virtual Searching Space Method," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, December.
    11. David Van Bulck & Dries Goossens & Jo¨rn Scho¨nberger & Mario Guajardo, 2020. "An Instance Data Repository for the Round-robin Sports Timetabling Problem," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 45(2), pages 184-200, May.
    12. Drent, Melvin & Moradi, Poulad & Arts, Joachim, 2023. "Efficient emission reduction through dynamic supply mode selection," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(3), pages 925-941.
    13. Kristiansen, Simon & Sørensen, Matias & Stidsen, Thomas R., 2011. "Elective course planning," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 215(3), pages 713-720, December.
    14. Panagiotis Andrianesis & Dimitris Bertsimas & Michael C. Caramanis & William W. Hogan, 2020. "Computation of Convex Hull Prices in Electricity Markets with Non-Convexities using Dantzig-Wolfe Decomposition," Papers 2012.13331, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    15. Tolou Esfandeh & Rajan Batta & Changhyun Kwon, 2018. "Time-Dependent Hazardous-Materials Network Design Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(2), pages 454-473, March.
    16. Tonbari, Mohamed El & Ahmed, Shabbir, 2023. "Consensus-based Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(3), pages 1441-1456.
    17. Perumal, S.S.G. & Dollevoet, T.A.B. & Huisman, D. & Lusby, R.M. & Larsen, J. & Riis, M., 2020. "Solution Approaches for Vehicle and Crew Scheduling with Electric Buses," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI-2020-02, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    18. R. A. Oude Vrielink & E. A. Jansen & E. W. Hans & J. Hillegersberg, 2019. "Practices in timetabling in higher education institutions: a systematic review," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 275(1), pages 145-160, April.
    19. Zhu, Wenbin & Huang, Weili & Lim, Andrew, 2012. "A prototype column generation strategy for the multiple container loading problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 223(1), pages 27-39.
    20. Paul A. Chircop & Timothy J. Surendonk & Menkes H. L. van den Briel & Toby Walsh, 2022. "On routing and scheduling a fleet of resource-constrained vessels to provide ongoing continuous patrol coverage," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 312(2), pages 723-760, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:256:y:2017:i:3:p:685-695. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.