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Crew scheduling
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Crew scheduling is the process of assigning crews to operate transportation systems, such as rail lines or aircraft.
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About Wikipedia 1 Complex
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2 4 Parts
Recent changes
3 Disruptions
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4 Related topics (systems)
Tools 5 Related topics (algorithms and software)
What links here 6 References
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Most transportation systems use software to manage the crew scheduling process. Crew scheduling becomes more and more complex as you add variables to the problem. These variables can be
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Wikidata item as simple as 1 location, 1 skill requirement, 1 shift of work and 1 set roster of people. In the Transportation industries, such as Rail or mainly Air Travel, these variables become very complex. In Air
Cite this page Travel for instance, there are numerous rules or "constraints" that are introduced. These mainly deal with legalities relating to work shifts and time, and a crew members qualifications for working on a
particular aircraft. Add numerous locations to the equation and Collective Bargaining and Federal labor laws and these become new considerations for the problem solving method. Fuel is also a
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major consideration as aircraft and other vehicles require a lot of costly fuel to operate. Finding the most efficient route and staffing it with properly qualified personnel is a critical financial
Create a book consideration. The same applies to rail travel.
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Printable version The problem is computationally difficult and there are competing mathematical methods of solving the problem. Although not easy to describe in one sentence, the goal is the essentially same for any
method of attacking the problem:
Languages Within a set of constraints and rules, move a set roster of people with certain qualifications, from place to place with the least amount of personnel and aircraft or vehicles in the
Add links least amount of time.
Lowest cost has traditionally been the major driver for any crew scheduling solution.

4 Parts [ edit ]

Although not a "rule", We can describe at least 4 parts of the equation that are ingested by the computational process:

People and their qualifications and abilities.

Aircraft or vehicles and their "People" qualification requirements and their cost to operate over distance.
Locations and the time and distance between each location.
Work rules for the personnel, including Shift hours and seniority.

In crew scheduling the rules and constraints are typically a combination of:

government regulations concerning flight time, duty time and required rest, designed to promote aviation safety and limit crew fatigue,
crew bid requests, vacations,
labor agreements
aircraft maintenance schedules
crew member qualification and licensing
other constraints related to training
pairing experienced crew members with more junior crew members
returning crew to their base at the end of their trip (called deadheading)

The first phase in crew planning is building the crew pairings (also known as trips, rotations, among other popular descriptions). This process pairs a generic crew member with a flight so that at the
end of this process all aircraft flights are covered and all trips (combination of flights starting at a crew base and returning to that crew base or co-terminal are crew legal. The next step is the
allocation of those trips to the individual crewmember. For the US, Canada and Australia, seniority generally rules. The two processes (which are completely different) are referred to as bid lines and
preferential bidding. In seniority order, pilots bid for either a line of time (bidline) or trips and days off (preferential bidding. these are awarded based on seniority and modified only when their
selections have already been taken by a more senior crew member (bidlines) or their trip and day off selections (preferential bidding) do not make up a complete line (hours, days off, etc. parameters
agreed to by the company and the union). The senior folks have more time off, better choice of time off and fly better trips than the junior crew members, generally speaking. In the US, this is
considered fair. For European airlines and other airlines in the rest of the world, the allocation process is completely different. The company builds the pilot schedules directly to meet their needs, not
the pilot's needs. Before assigning a single trip, the schedulers put all planned absences (vacation, training, etc.) onto the crew members' schedule. Only then are trips assigned to the individual
crew members. As such, fairness means that the most senior captain and the most junior captain have the same amount of duty time, block hours, night time, time away from base, layovers, expense
pay, etc. in a given schedule period. Seniority is out and all work is completely homogenized. For them, anything else is unfair, undemocratic. Slowly over the last thirty years, foreign airlines using the
"no seniority" rostering system have allowed some measure of seniority to creep into the allocation process from pilots who may now ask for a specific day off or trip once a quarter or make multiple
requests within a schedule period. Although this may sound very much like preferential bidding, it is not. The disparity between junior and senior crew members is still very limited and thus
achievement of your choices is limited.

Disruptions [ edit ]

Additional unplanned disruptions in schedules due to weather and air traffic control delays can disrupt schedules, so crew scheduling software remains an area for ongoing research.[1]

Related topics (systems) [ edit ]

Preferential bidding system

Fatigue (safety)
Automated planning and scheduling

Related topics (algorithms and software) [ edit ]

Linear programming
Column generation
Tabu search
Fatigue Avoidance Scheduling Tool

References [ edit ]

1. ^ http://www.engr.pitt.edu/~schaefer/Papers/UncertainCrewSched.pdf "Airline crew Scheduling under Uncertainty"

Categories: Aviation safety Optimization algorithms and methods Transportation planning Transport safety Scheduling (transportation)

This page was last edited on 10 April 2017, at 22:57.

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