Author(s)

J. P. Martins & E. Morgado

Abstract

CREWS is a software product for planning and managing the work of rail-staff, which provides solutions to one of the core problems that railway companies face today – effective management of resources. This paper reports some results of a long-term development work in the application of both Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research techniques to the planning and managing of staff (drivers, guards, and station personnel). The paper presents case studies emerging from the application of CREWS, both to railway and to subway companies. CREWS has grown to be a strong and mature product that provides decision-support in the task of planning the daily work of more than 20,000 staff members across Europe. CREWS-based systems are in routine use in the Dutch Railways, the Norwegian State Railways, the Finnish Railways, the Danish State Railways, the Suburban trains of Copenhagen, and the London Underground. Keywords: crew scheduling, crew planning. 1 Problem description Railways are going through a golden expansion period. The pressure for environmentally friendly transportation associated with the growing needs for mass transport and the possibility of competing with airlines in medium-range routes are generating a rail expansion that had not been seen for almost a century. On the other hand, productivity concerns are leading railway companies to introduce new management styles to improve the results of the business. In particular, new tools are being searched to improve the use of resources. A railway company needs to manage three main types of resources: track, rolling stock, and crew. In this paper, we just address the management of crew.

Keywords

crew scheduling, crew planning