Methods and apparatus for performing channel tree operations in a communication system are disclosed that order a channel tree to effect improved computation speed for channel tree operations for scheduling channel resources in the communication system. The disclosed methods include mapping each of one or more node identifiers of real nodes of a channel tree to corresponding virtual node identifiers based on a prescribed ordering scheme. After mapping, the methods include performing one or more operations on one or more of the real nodes of the channel tree using the virtual node identifiers. Corresponding apparatus configured to execute the disclosed methods are also disclosed.