Decision Support for Crew Rostering in Public Transit

Book excerpt: While traditionally sequential approaches have been used to deal with the cyclic/non-cyclic crew rostering problem in public transit, Lin Xie focuses on several solution approaches based on a novel network design to solve this task within one step. This is due to the fact that sequential planning often produces some unassigned duties that require additional drivers to cover them, while some drivers do not get jobs on some days. This integrated approach reduces additional personnel/operational costs and improves the satisfaction of drivers compared with the sequential one. Moreover, the author develops a web-based decision support system, which supports the planner in choosing a customized model as well as a suitable solution approach for solving the problem.