A reservoir balancing constraint with applications to bike-sharing

Abstract

\u3cp\u3eA global CP constraint is presented which improves the propagation of reservoir constraints on cumulative resources in schedules with optional tasks. The global constraint is incorporated in a CP approach to solve a Single-Commodity Pickup and Delivery Problem: the Bicycle Rebalancing Problem with Time-Windows and heterogeneous fleet. This problem was recently introduced at the 2015 ACP Summer School on Constraint Programming competition. The resulting CP approach outperforms a Branch-and-Bound approach derived from two closely related problems. In addition, the CP approach presented in this paper resulted in a first place position in the competition.\u3c/p\u3