Genetic algorithmic approach for security personnel scheduling

Personnel scheduling problems are multi-constrained combinatorial optimization problems. This paper deals with personnel scheduling problem where the objective is to assign personnel to task. The work presented is twofold, formulation of problem and application of genetic algorithmic approach to the problem. We have surveyed 45 Indian railway police stations from Mumbai division to formulate the problem and take the real world instances. This paper shows performance of genetic algorithms and hybrid genetic algorithms to a small problem instance with 14 personnel per shift. The results show that problem specific repair operator improves the working of GA at a significant level by avoiding premature convergence and gives the solution quickly.