A Comparative Study of Modern Heuristics on the School Timetabling Problem

In this contribution a comparative study of modern heuristics on the school timetabling problem is presented. More precisely, we investigate the application of two population-based algorithms, namely a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and an Artificial Fish Swarm (AFS), on the high school timetabli...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Iosif V. Katsaragakis, Ioannis X. Tassopoulos, Grigorios N. Beligiannis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2015-08-01
Series:Algorithms
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4893/8/3/723
Description
Summary:In this contribution a comparative study of modern heuristics on the school timetabling problem is presented. More precisely, we investigate the application of two population-based algorithms, namely a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and an Artificial Fish Swarm (AFS), on the high school timetabling problem. In order to demonstrate their efficiency and performance, experiments with real-world input data have been performed. Both algorithms proposed manage to create feasible and efficient high school timetables, thus fulfilling adequately the timetabling needs of the respective high schools. Computational results demonstrate that both algorithms manage to reach efficient solutions, most of the times better than existing approaches applied to the same school timetabling input instances using the same evaluation criteria.
ISSN:1999-4893