Engineering Label-Constrained Shortest-Path Algorithms

We consider a generalization of the shortest-path problem: given an alphabet , a graph G whose edges are weighted and -labeled, and a regular language L , the L-constrained shortest-path problem consists of finding a shortest path p in G such that the concatenated labels along p form a word of L. This definition allows to model, e. g., many traffic-planning problems. We present extensions of well-known speed-up techniques for the standard shortest-path problem, and conduct an extensive experimental study of their performance with various networks and language constraints. Our results show that depending on the network type, both goal-directed and bidirectional search speed up the search considerably, while combinations of these do not.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: AAIM
• Authors: Christopher L. Barrett, Keith R. Bisset, Martin Holzer, Goran Konjevod, Madhav V. Marathe, Dorothea Wagner
• Keywords: AAIM 2008, Algorithms, L-constrained Shortest-path Problem, Shortest-path Problem, Standard Shortest-path Problem