A tabu search heuristic for a university timetabling problem

Abstract

This paper describes a heuristic algorithm designed in connection with the 2003 International Timetabling Competition organized by the Metaheuristics Network. The problem posed in the competition was to develop an algorithm for solving university timetabling problems as described below. 20 test instances were provided and the competing algorithms were evaluated according to the overall performance on these 20 cases. Our algorithm uses an adaptive memory search to improve the quality of an initial solution. The search is guided by adaptive tabu search mechanisms. In addition to a description of our method we focus on the observed effectiveness of some of the mechanisms that we employ. Behavioral aspects and computational results are reported.