Hello All,

Are there any bidding services anyone can recommend?

 

PBS is pretty intuitive. So much so I would never pay an outside service.

Line:
1) MAX or MIN credit
2) Pattern (for commuters)
3) Avoid
4) Award.

RES:
1) Days off.

 

10 X = 10
20 Print "Hello World!"
30 X = X - 1
40 If X = 0 then end else goto 20

 

I used "PBS Bidding Solutions" to have them craft me up a dream sheet default bid. I think maybe a retired DL guy runs it? I guess maybe I could do it, but as a perma year round reserve guy, i had never bid a line here and literally the only thing I know how to do in PBS is log on, and bid for reserve days off. So at the time for those 3 months i wanted a line, it was $65 well spent for me (Was coming over to the Bus and wanted to get out and get some reps in it and figured might a well have sweet trips.)

 

Think of PBS this way - when the solver reaches you, it has a pool of trips from which to choose from in order to build you a line. First thing is if you want any specific rotation, bid those award pairings first. Worst case you won't get them and it just uses the rest of your bid lines to build a schedule. Best cast you get the sweep trips/layovers you want. It is also important to do this first because say you want weekends off, but also a good trip that is over a weekend. If you bid prefer weekends off first, then later prefer that pairing, it won't award it to you because it violates a higher bid line priority. If you bid for the trip first, it will award it to you if able, and then later you can prefer off weekends and the sovler will attempt to give you the rest of the weekends off.

You then want to tell the solver what type of pairings to avoid (removing them from the pool). Avoid report before XXX time. Prefer off XXX day(s). Avoid layover in XXX. And on and on. Whatever is left in the pairing pool after all your avoid pairings bids will be what the solver picks from to build your schedule. Prioritize those avoids, because if it can't honor all of them it will work its way up from the bottom removing your avoid bids (in other words, adding trips back in the pool) until it can build you a line.

Then add any particular award pairings. Be very careful with this as it is a powerful bid line. Say you really like 3 day trips, so you bid award pairings if pairing length =3. Guess what? Barring any other bid line the solver will attempt to a jam as many 3 days it can (including carry out trips). You are better off to Avoid 4, 5, 2, 1 day pairings to leave only 3 day pairings in the pool. Then when it tries to build you a line it will only pull 3 day trips to build you a schedule without jamming everything it can on your line. Of course this is all seniority dependent. If there are not enough 3 day trips left to build you a line it will start looking for other length trips to find a solution. That is why your avoid pairings bids are so critical to keep the solver within some reasonable bounds that you desire.

 

Yes. I know of one. No subscription required. Message me for details. 👍

 

Not used (admin limit = 0). Recommend learning to use avoid if credit > 0 to keep yourself in the bottom of the LCW.

 

Are you saying this will fill you up to a max credit line instead of stopping once you're in the LCW? News to me.

 

PBS doesn't necessarily stop when you enter the LCW, it stops when you hit the threshold. So if the threshold is at the top of the LCW, its going to keep slapping trips on your line until you hit the threshold.

 

Unless you tell it not to. PBS will not violate a bid request to get to the threshold.