Combining examinations to accelerate timetable construction

In this paper we propose a novel approach that combines compatible examinations in order to accelerate both the initial timetable construction, as well as a later search. The conditions for combining exams are described, and we show that we are able to offer some guarantees as to the quality of solutions that remain in the reduced search space. The approach is applied to one of the standard benchmarks in this area; the St. Andrews83 instance. The results verify the effectiveness of this approach in simplifying examination timetabling problems, speeding up initial timetable construction and assisting any subsequent search.