A label-setting algorithm for the truck driver scheduling problem in accordance with European Community social legislation

Abstract

In this paper, a label-setting algorithm is proposed in order to efficiently solve the weekly Truck Driver Scheduling Problem (TDSP), which can be seen as a single-machine problem that minimizes the completion time of a fixed sequence of jobs with release and due times and break periods. A focus is made on the night working rule that has only partially been considered in the literature. In the wide literature dedicated to Vehicle Routing Problems, some published heuristics and exact algorithms include constraints related to break/rest periods. But the night working rule defined by the European Community Social Legislation is only considered in some simplified and sub-optimal versions. This constraint is of interest, since it has a direct impact on the practical applicability of routes. Moreover, from a scheduling point of view, the night working rule enforces minimum and maximum time lag constraints, which makes challenging the development of an efficient solution algorithm. The method is benchmarked with a mixed integer linear programming model. Computational experiments show the efficiency of the proposed methods and the effect of the night working constraint on the feasibility of the schedules.