Improving Crew Scheduling for Maintenance Routing Problem: A Hyperheuristic Approach

Abstract

Operators of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) provide infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. Phone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, mobile networks, communications satellites, and undersea cellphone cables are all part of the PSTN, which is interconnected via switching centers and allows most telephones to communicate with one another. The PSTN, which began as a network of constant-line analog mobile programs, is now a digital core network that includes mobile and other networks, as well as fixed telephones. The complexity of the network and the exponential increase of phone and DSL services usage growth indicates that PSTN requires daily maintenance. In this study, we are interested in a real scenario of maintaining PSTN services. The problem appears as a variant of vehicle routing problem (VRP), with some particularities such as heterogeneous demanded services, heterogeneous teams' capabilities, working hours limit, and others. We will offer maintenance planning and scheduling using a non-exact optimization technique called hyperheuristic. In this study, we will propose an intelligent method as a heuristic selection method, as well as simulated annealing acceptance criteria and non-deterministic termination criteria. Our numerical experiments show that the hyper-heuristic solution method offered a high-quality solution in a reasonable time.