TPO: A System for Scheduling and Managing Train Crew in Norway

This paper reports some results of a long-term work in application of AI techniques whose ultimate goal is the development of tools for resource scheduling. Most of the efforts so far have been devoted to crew scheduling in railways and the resulting tool is called CREWS. CREWS contains the basic knowledge for crew scheduling, remains constant across companies, and only needs to be extended with the particularities of each one (domain, labor rules, scheduling strategies). The first successful deployment of CREWS was with Dutch Railways, as reported in (Morgado and Martins 1998). Since then, the initial modules of CREWS were deployed in several major European railways. In parallel, new modules of CREWS were developed and deployed (the Roster Scheduler, the Allocator, and the Short-term Scheduler). This paper addresses the development of an application for the Norwegian State Railways (NSB) that includes these new modules. This application was deployed in 2000. The system is being applied to schedule and manage the work of 1,800 persons: 1,000 engine drivers and 800 guards (ticket inspectors) allocated to 39 bases across Norway.