Expert systems for vehicle scheduling

Vehicle scheduling is one of the most commonly occurring problems of transport management. Traditionally, human schedulers tackle these problems, but over the past 30 years a considerable effort has been put into developing computer systems to replace or assist them. Despite this effort, very few organizations routinely use computerized vehicle scheduling. There are several reasons for this, including the difficulty in dealing with real complexity and uncertainty in algorithmic solutions. In recent years, interactive systems have tried to overcome these difficulties by using humans to play a part in the scheduling. A next step would be to include the schedulers’ skills in an expert system. Unfortunately, there is considerable diversity in scheduling problems and little agreement about the facts or rules needed for a knowledge base. At present, some characteristics of a general expert system for vehicle scheduling can be suggested, but several practical difficulties must still be overcome.