Crew operation scheduling using state selection method and relaxation search method

Railway crew operation scheduling is a problem in that the schedule of crews is scheduled according to a train timetable, whilst satisfying constraints such as working hours, rest hours etc. The authors propose a method which is made up of two phases: an initial scheduling phase; and a modification phase. In the first phase, the state selection method is used to satisfy the meal break constraint and knowledge for satisfying the meal break constraint is created. In the modification phase, a relaxation search method is created to dissolve other constraint violations. Exchange rules for dissolving constraint violation are created. This method is applied to a real rail timetable in order to show its usefulness.