Home A combined approximation for the traveling tournament problem and the traveling umpire problem
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

A combined approximation for the traveling tournament problem and the traveling umpire problem

  • Marco Bender EMAIL logo and Stephan Westphal
Published/Copyright: August 29, 2016

Abstract

We consider the traveling tournament problem (TTP) and the traveling umpire problem (TUP). In TTP, the task is to design a double round-robin schedule, where no two teams play against each other in two consecutive rounds, and the total travel distance is minimized. In TUP, the task is to find an assignment of umpires for a given tournament such that every umpire handles at least one game at every team’s home venue and an umpire neither visits a venue nor sees a team (home or away) too often. The task is to minimize the total distance traveled by the umpires. We present a combined approximation for this problem, when the number of umpires is odd. We therefore first design an approximation algorithm for TTP and then show how to define an umpire assignment for this tournament such that a constant-factor approximation for TUP is guaranteed.

References

Anagnostopoulos, A., L. Michel, P. Van Hentenryck, and Y. Vergados. 2006. “A Simulated Annealing Approach to the Travelling Tournament Problem.” Journal of Scheduling 9:177–193.10.1007/s10951-006-7187-8Search in Google Scholar

Benoist, T., L. Laburthe, and B. Rottembourg. 2001. “Lagrange Relaxation and Constraint Programming Collaborative Schemes for Traveling Tournament Problems.” in Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on the Integration of AI and OR Techniques (CP-AI-OR), 15–26.Search in Google Scholar

Christofides, N. 1976. “Worst-Case Analysis of a New Heuristic for the Travelling Salesman Problem.” Technical Report 388, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh.Search in Google Scholar

de Oliveira, L., C. de Souza, and T. Yunes. 2014. “Improved Bounds for the Traveling Umpire Problem: A Stronger Formulation and a Relax-and-Fix Heuristic.” European Journal of Operational Research 236:592–600.10.1016/j.ejor.2013.12.019Search in Google Scholar

de Oliveira, L., C. de Souza, and T. Yunes. 2015. “On the Complexity of the Traveling Umpire Problem.” Theoretical Computer Science 562:101–111.10.1016/j.tcs.2014.09.037Search in Google Scholar

de Werra, D. 1981. “Scheduling in Sports.” In: P. Hansen editor. Studies on Graphs and Discrete Programming, Annals of Discrete Mathematics (11)Studies on Graphs and Discrete Programming, North Holland: North-Holland Publishing Company, 59, 381–395.10.1016/S0304-0208(08)73478-9Search in Google Scholar

Easton, K., G. Nemhauser, and M. Trick. 2001. “The Traveling Tournament Problem Description and Benchmarks.” in Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming (CP), LNCS, volume 2239, 580–584.Search in Google Scholar

Easton, K., G. Nemhauser, and M. Trick. 2003. “Solving the Travelling Tournament Problem: A Combined Integer Programming and Constraint Programming Approach.” in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling (PATAT), LNCS, volume 2740, 100–109.Search in Google Scholar

Gaspero, L. D. and A. Schaerf. 2007. “A Composite-Neighborhood Tabu Search Approach to the Traveling Tournament Problem.” Journal of Heuristics 13:189–207.10.1007/s10732-006-9007-xSearch in Google Scholar

Kendall, G., S. Knust, C. Ribeiro, and S. Urrutia. 2010. “Scheduling in Sports: An Annotated Bibliography.” Computers and Operations Research 37:1–19.10.1016/j.cor.2009.05.013Search in Google Scholar

Kirkman, T. 1847. “On a Problem in Combinatorics.” The Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal 2:191–204.Search in Google Scholar

Lim, A., B. Rodrigues, and X. Zhang. 2006. “A Simulated Annealing and Hill-Climbing Algorithm for the Traveling Tournament Problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 174:1459–1478.10.1016/j.ejor.2005.02.065Search in Google Scholar

Miyashiro, R., T. Matsui, and S. Imahori. 2012. “An Approximation Algorithm for the Traveling Tournament Problem.” Annals of Operations Research 194:317–324.10.1007/s10479-010-0742-xSearch in Google Scholar

Rasmussen, R. and M. Trick. 2008. “Round Robin Scheduling – A Survey.” European Journal of Operational Research 188:617–636.10.1016/j.ejor.2007.05.046Search in Google Scholar

Ribeiro, C. C. and S. Urrutia. 2007. “Heuristics for the Mirrored Traveling Tournament Problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 179:775–787.10.1016/j.ejor.2005.03.061Search in Google Scholar

Thielen, C. and S. Westphal. 2011. “Complexity of the Traveling Tournament Problem.” Theoretical Computer Science 412:345–351.10.1016/j.tcs.2010.10.001Search in Google Scholar

Thielen, C. and S. Westphal. 2012. “Approximation Algorithms for TTP(2).” Mathematical Methods of Operations Research 76:1–20.10.1007/s00186-012-0387-4Search in Google Scholar

Trick, M. and H. Yildiz. 2007. “Bender’s Cuts Guided Large Neighborhood Search for the Traveling Umpire Problem.” in Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 4510, 332–345.Search in Google Scholar

Trick, M., H. Yildiz, and T. Yunes. 2011. “Scheduling Major League Baseball Umpires and the Traveling Umpire Problem.” Interfaces, 42:232–244.10.1287/inte.1100.0514Search in Google Scholar

Trick, M., H. Yildiz, and T. Yunes. 2012. “Locally Optimized Crossover for the Traveling Umpire Problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 216:286–292.10.1016/j.ejor.2011.07.049Search in Google Scholar

Wauters, T., S. van Malderen, and G. V. Berghe. 2014. “Decomposition and Local Search based Methods for the Traveling Umpire Problem.” European Journal of Operational Research 238:886–898.10.1016/j.ejor.2014.04.043Search in Google Scholar

Westphal, S. and K. Noparlik. 2014. “A 5.875-Approximation for the Traveling Tournament Problem.” Annals of Operations Research 218:347–360.10.1007/s10479-012-1061-1Search in Google Scholar

Yamaguchi, D., S. Imahori, R. Miyashiro, and T. Matsui. 2011. “An Improved Approximation Algorithm for the Traveling Tournament Problem.” Algorithmica 61:1077–1091.10.1007/978-3-642-10631-6_69Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-8-29
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

©2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 7.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jqas-2015-0111/html
Scroll to top button