Defining and Computing Alternative Routes in Road Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces mathematical definitions for meaningful alternative routes in road networks and proposes heuristics to compute them, addressing a gap in current route planning algorithms that typically find only a single optimal path.

Contribution

It provides the first formal definitions of human-centric alternative routes and offers heuristic algorithms to compute them, tackling the NP-hardness of the problem.

Findings

Defined mathematical criteria for alternative routes

Developed heuristics for practical computation

Addressed the NP-hardness of the problem

Abstract

Every human likes choices. But today's fast route planning algorithms usually compute just a single route between source and target. There are beginnings to compute alternative routes, but this topic has not been studied thoroughly. Often, the aspect of meaningful alternative routes is neglected from a human point of view. We fill in this gap by suggesting mathematical definitions for such routes. As a second contribution we propose heuristics to compute them, as this is NP-hard in general.