Scheduling cricket umpires using neighbourhood search – the dramatic impact of a simple change in neighbourhood definition

Abstract

This paper reports on experiences using a neighbourhood search approach for scheduling umpires for two amateur cricket leagues in England. Experimental analysis shows that the inclusion of a new type of perturbation in addition to the two types already in use leads to much improved results. Further analysis suggests that the perturbation types used are all of distinct meta-types, all of which are valuable in producing good solutions for complex combinatorial problems of this type