Engineering Time-Dependent Many-to-Many Shortest Paths Computation

Computing distance tables is important for many logistics problems like the vehicle routing problem (VRP). While shortest distances from all source nodes in S to all target nodes in T are time-independent, travel times are not. We present the first efficient algorithms to compute time-dependent travel time tables in large time-dependent road networks. Our algorithms are based on time-dependent contraction hierarchies (TCH), currently the fastest time-dependent speed-up technique. The computation of a table is inherently in Θ(|S| · |T |), and therefore inefficient for large tables. We provide one particular algorithm using only Θ(|S|+ |T |) time and space, being able to answer queries two orders of magnitude faster than the basic TCH implementation. If small errors are acceptable, approximate versions of our algorithms are further orders of magnitude faster. 1998 ACM Subject Classification G.2.2, J.1