Intelligent adaptive control in an on-line cane transport scheduler : final report UCQ2S

Abstract

23 out of 28 Australian sugar mills operate privately owned cane railway systems and, as a group, these systems form the third largest rail transport system in Australia.

The purpose of cane railway scheduling is to build a set of locomotive runs, or a schedule, that minimizes the costs involved and satisfies the demands of both the miller and the grower. There are several characteristics of this problem that sets it apart from other scheduling problems:

 Harvested sugar cane is a perishable product that deteriorates at an increasing rate after it is harvested

 The schedule can determine, to a certain extent, the timing of the harvest, and the demand for empty bins by the growers.

This project improves the Automatic Cane Railway Scheduling System, ACRSS, so that the schedules generated by ACRSS more closely reflect operational schedules.