ARRIVAL: A zero-player graph game in NP $\cap$ coNP

TL;DR

This paper studies a special railway network problem where switches change state after each traversal, proving that deciding if the train reaches its destination is in NP ∩ coNP, indicating potential for polynomial solutions.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new graph game problem and proves its decision complexity lies in NP ∩ coNP, a significant step in understanding its computational difficulty.

Findings

The problem is in NP ∩ coNP.

It is solvable in exponential time.

Open question on polynomial-time solutions remains.

Abstract

Suppose that a train is running along a railway network, starting from a designated origin, with the goal of reaching a designated destination. The network, however, is of a special nature: every time the train traverses a switch, the switch will change its position immediately afterwards. Hence, the next time the train traverses the same switch, the other direction will be taken, so that directions alternate with each traversal of the switch. Given a network with origin and destination, what is the complexity of deciding whether the train, starting at the origin, will eventually reach the destination? It is easy to see that this problem can be solved in exponential time, but we are not aware of any polynomial-time method. In this short paper, we prove that the problem is in NP $\cap$ coNP. This raises the question whether we have just failed to find a (simple) polynomial-time solution, or whether the complexity status is more subtle, as for some other well-known (two-player) graph games.