The DISSY Project - an activity within the HPCN TTN CAPRICE , sector group Scheduling and Logistics, supported by the EU information technologies programme ESPRIT

DISSY – A Driver Rostering System for Public Transport

A Whitepaper

Thomas Emden-Weinert, Hans-Georg Kotas, Ulf Speer

April 12, 2001

Abstract

Due to liberalisation, public transport in the European Union will become a more competitive market. The DISSY project demonstrates the economical and social benefits that may be obtained by the application of operations research techniques combined with distributed computing in the field of human resource planning for organisations employing a large workforce. DISSY is a simulation and decision support system for the bus and tram driver duty rostering problem in urban public transport (UPT). The tool allows modelling and evaluation of tentative or alternative rostering scenarios, thereby enabling the organisation to better adapt policies to new framework conditions. We evaluate an integer linear programming approach for the rota scheduling problem and develop an algorithm for the problem of designing profiles that combines integer linear programming and local search. The latter problem arises in connection with the concept of an integrated rostering of drivers partitioned into groups according to their qualifications and preferences.

Keywords: duty sequencing, staff rostering, rota scheduling, workforce planning, public transport, decision support system, simulation, metaheuristics, integer programming, generalised assignment, distributed computing

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TEW, created 2002/03/14.