2008 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Penalising Patterns in Timetables: Novel Integer Programming Formulations
Authors : Edmund K. Burke, Jakub Mareček, Andrew J. Parkes, Hana Rudová
Published in: Operations Research Proceedings 2007
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
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Many complex timetabling problems have an underpinning bounded graph colouring component, a pattern penalisation component and a number of side constraints. The bounded graph colouring component corresponds to hard constraints such as “students are in at most one place at one time” and “there is a limited number of rooms” [3]. Despite the hardness of graph colouring, it is often easy to generate feasible colourings. However, real-world timetabling systems [5] have to cope with much more challenging requirements, such as “students should not have gaps in their individual daily timetables”, which often make the problem over-constrained. The key to tackling this challenge is a suitable formulation of “soft” constraints, which count and minimise penalties incurred by matches of various patterns. Several integer programming formulations are presented and discussed in this paper.