An evolutionary tabu search algorithm and the National Hockey League scheduling problem

This paper presents a new evolutionary procedure for solving general optimization problems that combines efficiently the mechanisms of genetic algorithms and tabu search. In order to explore the solution space properly interaction phases are interspersed with periods of optimization in the algorithm. An adaptation of this search principle to the National Hockey League (NHL) problem is discussed. The hybrid method developed in this paper is well suited for Open Shop Scheduling problems (OSSP). The results obtained appear to be quite satisfactory.