A new branch-and-price algorithm for the traveling tournament problem

The traveling tournament problem (ttp) consists of finding a distance-minimal double round-robin tournament where the number of consecutive breaks is bounded. For solving the problem exactly, we propose a new branch-and-price approach. The starting point is a new compact formulation for the ttp. The corresponding extensive formulation resulting from a Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition is identical to one given by Easton, K., Nemhauser, G., Trick, M., 2003. Solving the traveling tournament problem: a combined interger programming and constraint programming approach. In: Burke, E., De Causmaecker, P. (Eds.), Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling IV, Volume 2740 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg, pp. 100–109, who suggest to solve the tour-generation subproblem by constraint programming. In contrast to their approach, our method explicitly utilizes the network structure of the compact formulation: First, the column-generation subproblem is a shortest-path problem with additional resource and task-elementarity constraints. We show that this problem can be reformulated as an ordinary shortest-path problem over an expanded network and, thus, be solved much faster. An exact variable elimination procedure then allows the reduction of the expanded networks while still guaranteeing optimality. Second, the compact formulation gives rise to supplemental branching rules, which are needed, since existing rules do not ensure integrality in all cases. Third, non-repeater constraints are added dynamically to the master problem only when violated. The result is a fast exact algorithm, which improves many lower bounds of knowingly hard ttp instances from the literature. For some instances, solutions are proven optimal for the first time.