IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/annopr/v320y2023i1d10.1007_s10479-022-04957-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategies for dealing with uncertainty in time-relaxed sports timetabling

Author

Listed:
  • Xiajie Yi

    (Ghent University)

  • Dries Goossens

    (Ghent University
    FlandersMake@UGent- core lab CVAMO)

Abstract

Time-relaxed sports timetables use more time slots than strictly needed, and are particularly popular in amateur (indoor) leagues. However, due to unexpected events, a considerable number of games may not be played as initially planned before the start of the tournament, leading to a potentially very different realized timetable. This study focuses on dealing with these uncertain events in time-relaxed round-robin sports timetabling, and how to mitigate their effect on the quality of the timetable. We use three quality measures to evaluate the time-relaxed timetables, namely, the games played difference index, the rest difference index and the number of cancelled games. We present several combined proactive and reactive approaches taking into account venue and team availability. Proactive strategies determine the position of time slots that are used as a buffer, while reactive strategies reschedule matches to these buffers in terms of the quality measures.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiajie Yi & Dries Goossens, 2023. "Strategies for dealing with uncertainty in time-relaxed sports timetabling," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 320(1), pages 473-492, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:320:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-022-04957-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-022-04957-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10479-022-04957-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10479-022-04957-0?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. Yi, Xiajie & Goossens, Dries & Nobibon, Fabrice Talla, 2020. "Proactive and reactive strategies for football league timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 282(2), pages 772-785.
    2. M B Wright, 2009. "50 years of OR in sport," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 161-168, May.
    3. Knust, Sigrid, 2010. "Scheduling non-professional table-tennis leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 200(2), pages 358-367, January.
    4. Rasmussen, Rasmus V. & Trick, Michael A., 2008. "Round robin scheduling - a survey," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 188(3), pages 617-636, August.
    5. David Van Bulck & Dries Goossens, 2022. "Optimizing rest times and differences in games played: an iterative two-phase approach," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 261-271, June.
    6. Schauz, Uwe, 2016. "The tournament scheduling problem with absences," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 254(3), pages 746-754.
    7. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(5), pages 482-507, June.
    8. Durán, Guillermo & Durán, Santiago & Marenco, Javier & Mascialino, Federico & Rey, Pablo A., 2019. "Scheduling Argentina’s professional basketball leagues: A variation on the Travelling Tournament Problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1126-1138.
    9. Charles Fleurent & Jacques A. Ferland, 1993. "Allocating Games for the NHL Using Integer Programming," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 41(4), pages 649-654, August.
    10. James C. Bean & John R. Birge, 1980. "Reducing Travelling Costs and Player Fatigue in the National Basketball Association," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 98-102, June.
    11. Schonberger, J. & Mattfeld, D. C. & Kopfer, H., 2004. "Memetic Algorithm timetabling for non-commercial sport leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(1), pages 102-116, February.
    12. Van Bulck, David & Goossens, Dries & Schönberger, Jörn & Guajardo, Mario, 2020. "RobinX: A three-field classification and unified data format for round-robin sports timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 280(2), pages 568-580.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Guillermo Durán, 2021. "Sports scheduling and other topics in sports analytics: a survey with special reference to Latin America," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 29(1), pages 125-155, April.
    2. David Van Bulck & Dries Goossens, 2022. "Optimizing rest times and differences in games played: an iterative two-phase approach," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 261-271, June.
    3. Tasbih Tuffaha & Burak Çavdaroğlu & Tankut Atan, 2023. "Round-robin scheduling with regard to rest differences," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 31(2), pages 269-301, July.
    4. Goller, Daniel & Krumer, Alex, 2020. "Let's meet as usual: Do games played on non-frequent days differ? Evidence from top European soccer leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(2), pages 740-754.
    5. Li, Miao & Davari, Morteza & Goossens, Dries, 2023. "Multi-league sports scheduling with different leagues sizes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(1), pages 313-327.
    6. Yi, Xiajie & Goossens, Dries & Nobibon, Fabrice Talla, 2020. "Proactive and reactive strategies for football league timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 282(2), pages 772-785.
    7. Bergantiños, Gustavo & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2022. "Monotonicity in sharing the revenues from broadcasting sports leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(1), pages 338-346.
    8. Alireza Tajbakhsh & Kourosh Eshghi & Azam Shamsi, 2012. "A hybrid PSO-SA algorithm for the travelling tournament problem," European Journal of Industrial Engineering, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(1), pages 2-25.
    9. Daniel Goller & Sandro Heiniger, 2024. "A general framework to quantify the event importance in multi-event contests," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 341(1), pages 71-93, October.
    10. Van Bulck, David & Goossens, Dries, 2023. "A traditional Benders’ approach to sports timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(2), pages 813-826.
    11. Guillermo Durán & Mario Guajardo & Facundo Gutiérrez & Javier Marenco & Denis Sauré & Gonzalo Zamorano, 2021. "Scheduling the Main Professional Football League of Argentina," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 361-372, September.
    12. Durán, Guillermo & Durán, Santiago & Marenco, Javier & Mascialino, Federico & Rey, Pablo A., 2019. "Scheduling Argentina’s professional basketball leagues: A variation on the Travelling Tournament Problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 275(3), pages 1126-1138.
    13. Dries Goossens & Jeroen Beliën, 2023. "Teaching Integer Programming by Scheduling the Belgian Soccer League," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 164-172, May.
    14. Michal Friesl & Liam J. A. Lenten & Jan Libich & Petr Stehlík, 2017. "In search of goals: increasing ice hockey’s attractiveness by a sides swap," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 68(9), pages 1006-1018, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Bartsch, Thomas & Kröger, Stefan, 1996. "Ein Entscheidungs-Unterstützungs-System zur Erstellung von Spielplänen für die Fußballbundesliga," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 427, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    17. van Doornmalen, Jasper & Hojny, Christopher & Lambers, Roel & Spieksma, Frits C.R., 2023. "Integer programming models for round robin tournaments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 310(1), pages 24-33.
    18. Roel Lambers & Dries Goossens & Frits C. R. Spieksma, 2023. "The flexibility of home away pattern sets," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 413-423, October.
    19. Mancini Simona & Isabello Andrea, 2014. "Fair referee assignment for the Italian soccer serieA," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 153-160, June.
    20. David Bulck & Dries R. Goossens & Frits C. R. Spieksma, 2019. "Scheduling a non-professional indoor football league: a tabu search based approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 275(2), pages 715-730, April.

    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:spr:annopr:v:320:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-022-04957-0. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.