The purpose of this paper is to describe an integer linear programming model to schedule the maintenance crew and the maintenance tasks in a bus operating company.
The proposed methodology relies on an integer linear programming model that finds feasible maintenance schedules. It minimizes the costs associated with maintenance crew and the costs associated with unavailability. The model is applied in a real-world case study of a Portuguese bus operating company. A constructive heuristic approach is put forward, based on solving the maintenance scheduling problem for each bus separately.
The heuristic finds better solutions than the exact methods (based on branch-and-bound techniques) in a much lower computational time.
The results suggest the relevance of such heuristic approaches for maintenance scheduling in practice.
This proposed model is an effective decision-making support method that provides feasible maintenance schedules for the maintenance technicians and for the maintenance tasks in a fleet of buses. It also complies with several operational, technical and labour constraints.
