A genetic algorithm based column generation method for multi-depot electric bus vehicle scheduling

Abstract

In this paper, we study a multi-depot electric bus vehicle scheduling problem (MD-EVSP) and propose a genetic algorithm based column generation approach (GA-CG) for it. In GA-CG, a column refers to a driving plan of a vehicle. CG first generates a set of candidate columns. Then, a GA is used to select a subset of candidate columns from the column set to form the final solution. Experiments show that GA-CG can effectively solve MD-EVSP and runs much fast than branch and price algorithm.