The Extraboard Operator Scheduling and Work Assignment Problem

An instance of the operational fixed job scheduling problem arises when open work caused by unplanned events such as bus breakdowns and inclement weather and driver (operator) absenteeism needs to be covered by reserve (extraboard) drivers. Each work piece, which is referred to as a job, requires one operator who must work continuously between specified start and end times to complete the job. Each extraboard operator may be assigned up to w hours of work, which may not to be continuous so long as the total work time is within a s-hour time window of that operator’s shift start time. Parameters w and s are called allowable work-time and spread-time, respectively. The objective is to choose operators’ shift start times and work assignments, while honoring work-time and spread-time constraints, such that the amount of work covered as part of regular duties is maximized. The extraboard operator scheduling problem is NP-hard. Therefore, we explore three heuristic solution approaches and associated worst-case as well as average performances. These include a decomposition-based algorithm whose worst-case performance ratio is proved to lie in [1 − 1/e, 19/27], which improves upon an earlier result in the literature. We also present numerical experiments using data from a large transit agency, which show that the average performance of the decomposition algorithm is good when applied to real-world data, and that it has the potential to save the transit agency hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly overtime costs.