Back to All Case Studies“The travel partner rule made scheduling a nightmare. Every year we hit a wall trying to sequence these games by hand. With SchedulOpt, it just… works. What used to take weeks now takes hours and we know it’s correct.”
The Domino EffectIf one of the four games in the travel block can’t be scheduled due to a venue clash, the entire trip falls apart. The scheduler must find a new weekend for all four teams, which often creates new conflicts elsewhere.
Excel Can’t Handle ItSpreadsheets and basic solvers don’t understand the concept of a “travel partner.” They can’t enforce the sequencing and grouping rules, forcing coordinators into endless manual work.
Massive Manual WorkloadCoordinators spend days trying to manually piece together these complex travel blocks, constantly checking for errors and starting over when a conflict arises.
High Risk of ErrorsA single mistake in the travel partner sequence can lead to increased costs, player fatigue, and last-minute rescheduling that damages relationships with other schools.
Schedulers define pairs of teams that must travel together and group dates into travel blocks (e.g., a Friday/Saturday weekend). The rule is then enforced globally across the season.
The system applies a constraint satisfaction algorithm that eliminates invalid sequences before they are scheduled, ensuring no team plays an opponent twice before facing everyone else.
On top of the travel logic, the system balances home/away distributions, prevents long streaks of away games, and ensures opponents are spaced out correctly.
Generate a valid draft in hours, not weeks. If a parameter changes, re-run the schedule without rebuilding from scratch. The engine handles 20+ team leagues with these complex rules smoothly.
Ensures a fair mix of home and away games for all teams.
Prevents teams from having too many consecutive home or away games.
Keeps the competition fresh by ensuring teams don’t face each other again too soon.
Guarantees fairness not just across the league, but also between direct competitors.
See how SchedulOpt® can save you time and deliver fairer, more efficient schedules.
