School Timetable - suggestions for a more efficient representation and a solution for schools with shifts

Abstract

Creating school timetables is a problem whose complexity varies depending on school size and the requirements that occur in a model. The topic of this paper is related to schools that lack resources because they work in shifts and they are rarely discussed in literature. The first problem is the way the requirements are written. The paper deals with the XHSTT format and REDOSPLAT, a domain-specific language designed to set up timetable requirements. Another problem is the way a model is solved. We investigated the VNS and SVNS algorithms because they showed good results for this type of school. Their application on the actual test cases also revealed some interesting phenomena in formulating the requirements that can significantly affect the quality of the solution.