Reservation allocation algorithm

Lemmedaskeren picture Lemmedaskeren · Jan 14, 2011 · Viewed 11.4k times · Source

I am looking for algorithms for allocating reservations to resources. This could be Hotel reservations matched to available rooms - Meeting reservations matched to available meeting rooms - Restaurant reservations matched to tables.

What they have in common:

  • Each reservation has a specific unchangeable start and end time.
  • Each reservation is not bound to a specific resource before the start time.
  • There can be a variable number of resources.
  • Every time a new reservation comes, the algorithm should at least be able to check if it is possible to match to a resource or not.

So far I have mostly looked at genetic algorithm approaches to solve the problem, but I'm having trouble encoding the problem to chromosomes.

Any thoughts on algorithms for this is welcome, also algorithms that only finds a "good" solution as opposed to an optimal one.

Answer

user687474 picture user687474 · Apr 6, 2011

This article includes various time operation to check for free, overlapping and intersecting time periods. You can easily combine this classes with your business objects:

// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
public void TimeRangeSample()
{
  // --- time range 1 ---
  TimeRange timeRange1 = new TimeRange(
    new DateTime( 2011, 2, 22, 14, 0, 0 ),
    new DateTime( 2011, 2, 22, 18, 0, 0 ) );
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange1: " + timeRange1 );
  // > TimeRange1: 22.02.2011 14:00:00 - 18:00:00 | 04:00:00

  // --- time range 2 ---
  TimeRange timeRange2 = new TimeRange(
    new DateTime( 2011, 2, 22, 15, 0, 0 ),
    new TimeSpan( 2, 0, 0 ) );
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange2: " + timeRange2 );
  // > TimeRange2: 22.02.2011 15:00:00 - 17:00:00 | 02:00:00

  // --- time range 3 ---
  TimeRange timeRange3 = new TimeRange(
    new DateTime( 2011, 2, 22, 16, 0, 0 ),
    new DateTime( 2011, 2, 22, 21, 0, 0 ) );
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange3: " + timeRange3 );
  // > TimeRange3: 22.02.2011 16:00:00 - 21:00:00 | 05:00:00

  // --- relation ---
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange1.GetRelation( TimeRange2 ): " +
                     timeRange1.GetRelation( timeRange2 ) );
  // > TimeRange1.GetRelation( TimeRange2 ): Enclosing
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange1.GetRelation( TimeRange3 ): " +
                     timeRange1.GetRelation( timeRange3 ) );
  // > TimeRange1.GetRelation( TimeRange3 ): EndInside
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange3.GetRelation( TimeRange2 ): " +
                     timeRange3.GetRelation( timeRange2 ) );
  // > TimeRange3.GetRelation( TimeRange2 ): StartInside

  // --- intersection ---
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange1.GetIntersection( TimeRange2 ): " +
                     timeRange1.GetIntersection( timeRange2 ) );
  // > TimeRange1.GetIntersection( TimeRange2 ):
  //             22.02.2011 15:00:00 - 17:00:00 | 02:00:00
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange1.GetIntersection( TimeRange3 ): " +
                     timeRange1.GetIntersection( timeRange3 ) );
  // > TimeRange1.GetIntersection( TimeRange3 ):
  //             22.02.2011 16:00:00 - 18:00:00 | 02:00:00
  Console.WriteLine( "TimeRange3.GetIntersection( TimeRange2 ): " +
                     timeRange3.GetIntersection( timeRange2 ) );
  // > TimeRange3.GetIntersection( TimeRange2 ):
  //             22.02.2011 16:00:00 - 17:00:00 | 01:00:00
} // TimeRangeSample