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Scheduling the English Football League with a Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm

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Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XIII (PPSN 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8672))

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Abstract

We describe a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm that derives schedules for the English Football League over the busy New Year period according to seven objectives. The two principal objectives are to minimise travel distances for teams and supporters, and to minimise so-called “pair clashes” where teams which are geographically close play at home simultaneously, which can cause problems for police, and other logistical issues. The other five objectives implement various problem constraints. The schedules derived are often superior both to those used in the relevant years, and to those previously published in the literature, especially for the harder problem instances. In addition, the system returns a set of schedules offering different trade-offs between the main objectives, any of which might be of interest to the authorities.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science & Software Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Australia

    Lyndon While

  2. ASAP Research Group, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia

    Graham Kendall

  3. University of Nottingham, UK

    Graham Kendall

Authors
  1. Lyndon While
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  2. Graham Kendall
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer and Engineering Sciences, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Steinmüllerallee 1, 51643, Gummersbach, Germany

    Thomas Bartz-Beielstein

  2. Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, CV8 2SY, Coventry, UK

    Jürgen Branke

  3. Department of Intelligent Systems, JožefStefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Bogdan Filipič

  4. Department of Computer Science and Creative Technologies, University of the West of England, BS16 1QY, Bristol, UK

    Jim Smith

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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While, L., Kendall, G. (2014). Scheduling the English Football League with a Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm. In: Bartz-Beielstein, T., Branke, J., Filipič, B., Smith, J. (eds) Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN XIII. PPSN 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8672. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10762-2_83

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10762-2_83

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10761-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10762-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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