Locally Optimized Crossover for the Traveling Umpire Problem

This paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the Traveling Umpire Problem, which is a recently introduced sports scheduling problem that is based on the most important features of the real Major League Baseball umpire scheduling problem. In our GA, contrary to the traditional way of randomly obtaining new solutions from parent solutions, we obtain partially optimized solutions with a Locally Optimized Crossover operator. This operator also presents a link between the evolutionary mechanism on a population of solutions and the local search on a single solution. We present improved results over other methods on benchmark instances.

► We present a genetic algorithm to solve a difficult sports scheduling problem. ► Traveling Umpire Problem is based on the real MLB umpire scheduling problem. ► We obtain partially optimized solutions with a Locally Optimized Crossover operator. ► This operator also presents a link between the evolutionary methods and local search. ► We present improved results over other methods on benchmark instances.