ABSTRACT
This work introduces a model and software for the rostering and crew scheduling problems, for train operation in the mining industry in Chile. The transportation rail network covers most of locations of the industry in the North of the country, including mines, plants and ports. The model possesses particular features due to specific regulations with which train operators in mine material transportation are required to comply. The model and algorithm have been implemented with a user interface suitable for the remote execution of real instances on a High Performance Computing platform. The transportation company regularly uses this computerized tool for planning crew schedules and generating efficient assignments for changing operational conditions. The problem has been partitioned in two steps. Firstly, through a linear mixed integer optimization model, every trip is divided in elemental segments to be served by the crews. Secondly, another optimization model produces the crew assignment to fulfil all the trips demand. The optimization instances are solved by using Gurobi, coded in AMPL and it permits an efficient management of the human resources (drivers), equilibrating the workloads between them.
