Using a maximal covering approach for the vehicle and crew scheduling: a case of study

Abstract

Nowadays, the vehicle and crew scheduling is a hard and widely studied Combinatorial Optimization problem. Several studies have shown that exact approaches for resolution of the above mentioned problem are prohibitive due to high computational cost involved. This paper describes a new approach for vehicle and crew scheduling without changeovers (the change of a vehicle of a driver are forbidden) based on a maximum covering problem formulation. Computational results with bus and crew scheduling problems from companies of Fortaleza, located in Northeast of Brazil, are presented and discussed. The results indicate the applicability of the proposed approach.