Bi-directional Search for Robust Routes in Time-dependent Bi-criteria Road Networks

Based on time-dependent travel times for N past days, we consider the computation of robust routes according to the min-max relative regret criterion. For this method we seek a path minimizing its maximum weight in any one of the N days, normalized by the weight of an optimum for the respective day. In order to speed-up this computationally demanding approach, we observe that its output belongs to the Pareto front of the network with time-dependent multi-criteria edge weights. We adapt a well-known algorithm for computing Pareto fronts in time-dependent graphs and apply the bi-directional search technique to it. We also show how to parametrize this algorithm by a value K to compute a K-approximate Pareto front. An experimental evaluation for the cases N = 2 and N = 3 indicates a considerable speed-up of the bi-directional search over the uni-directional. 1998 ACM Subject Classification F.2.2 Nonnumerical Algorithms and Problems