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HEURISTICS
1998

Constraint Handling in Genetic Algorithms: The Set Partitioning Problem

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Constraint Handling in Genetic Algorithms: The Set Partitioning Problem
In this paper we present a genetic algorithm-based heuristic for solving the set partitioning problem (SPP). The SPP is an important combinatorial optimisation problem used by many airlines as a mathematical model for flight crew scheduling. A key feature of the SPP is that it is a highly constrained problem, all constraints being equalities. New genetic algorithm (GA) components: separate fitness and unfitness scores, adaptive mutation, matching selection and ranking replacement, are introduced to enable a GA to effectively handle such constraints. These components are generalisable to any GA for constrained problems. We present a steady-state GA in conjunction with a specialised heuristic improvement operator for solving the SPP. The performance of our algorithm is evaluated on a large set of real-world problems. Computational results show that the genetic algorithm-based heuristic is capable of producing high-quality solutions. Key Words: combinatorial optimisation, crew schedul...
P. C. Chu, J. E. Beasley
Added 22 Dec 2010
Updated 22 Dec 2010
Type Journal
Year 1998
Where HEURISTICS
Authors P. C. Chu, J. E. Beasley
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