An AI-based approach to crew scheduling

The authors present CREWS, an AI-based tool to generate applications in crew scheduling. The first application developed with this tool, called ESCALAS, schedules crews for the Portuguese Railways. This application is complete, has undergone extensive testing, and has proved to produce schedules that are comparable with those produced by human experts, at a fraction of the time. ESCALAS is also able to perform crew assignment to each one of the schedules produced and can modify both the schedule and the assignment produced.<>