February 2008 – Cologne, Germany’s Regionalverkehr Köln (RVK) is tackling new scheduling challenges by implementing GIRO’s CrewOpt module, a tool to automatically generate and optimize crew schedules.
In trial runs on scheduled services in an urban area, CrewOpt generated schedules that saved as much as 29 hours of paid working time per day. Five complete duties were saved out of a total of 123 duties needed to operate this service, a savings of 4%.
The crew schedules produced by CrewOpt contained only valid duties, while meeting the requirements of three different union agreements in effect for drivers assigned to these routes. Furthermore, the crew schedules produced with CrewOpt strengthened the synergies already brought about with the merging of two separate operating subsidiaries.
Up to now the RVK used the Minbus module to generate both its blocks and duties simultaneously. Indeed, not only can Minbus automatically generate optimal blocks from a set of trips to be operated, but it can do so while taking into account very complex and diverse restrictions and limitations that, in a regional operations context, make it necessary for each block to be equal to a duty.
In an urban or mixed urban/regional context, however, the multitude of relief opportunities and types available to the scheduler means much greater savings can be obtained. First, an optimal vehicle schedule is created, from which one subsequently cuts the blocks into the most economical duties. CrewOpt’s ability to take into consideration vehicle types and counts in the source blocks brings an added benefit: its solutions no longer force certain blocks to be reworked to satisfy vehicle restrictions.
The end result for the RVK is an optimizing tool flexible enough to handle its most demanding scheduling scenarios, in both regional and city contexts, but still sufficiently powerful to produce schedules that can be put immediately into production and that guarantee savings in operating costs.
“We are very satisfied with the results we get from CrewOpt,” says Peter Lamberty, HASTUS manager at the RVK. “The algorithms always seem to come up with the best possible solution, one that respects both employee wishes and union agreements, while also ensuring maximum savings for the company.”
