Networks often form the core of many users’ spatial databases. Networks are used to support the rapid navigation and analysis of linearly connected data such as that found in transportation networks. Common types of analysis performed on such networks include shortest path, traveling salesman, allocation, and distance matrix computation. Network data models are usually represented as a small collection of tables: a junction table and an edge table. In the context of networks used to model transportation infrastructure, it is also necessary to model turn restrictions and impedances (delays). Network data is frequently persisted in normalized relational tables that are accessible via standard SQL-based queries. We propose a different approach where the network connectivity information is persisted using a compressed binary storage representation in a relational database. The connectivity information is accessible via standard Java, .NET, and COM APIs that are tailored to common access ...
Erik G. Hoel, Wee-Liang Heng, Dale Honeycutt