Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.

12, 2017

Some Graph-theoretical and Optimized Problems and Transportation

Systems

Ngoc C. LÊ a, Huyen T. LE b, Thang NGUYEN c, Giang NGO d

a
School of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, Hanoi University of Science and
Technology, Hanoi, 10000, Vietnam
a
E-mail: lechingoc@yahoo.com
b
Faculty of Transport Economics, University of Transport and Communications,
Hanoi, 10000, Vietnam
b
E-mail: huyen318@gmail.com
c
Same as the first author; E-mail: dacthang96@gmail.com
d
Same as the first author; E-mail: giangblackk@gmail.com

Abstract: The problems of transport network in both metropolitans and national road
networks seem to be more serious when the system had changed from bicycle dependence to
motorcycle dependence and now are quickly shifting to travelling by cars in the lack of good
public transport infrastructures. The inevitable results will be unbalance and unsustainability
in traffic and transportation system. The need of good mathematical tools for modelling and
analyzing these problems becomes urgent. The main aim of this paper is to present graph
theory as a tool to analyze and optimize transport systems. We will discuss on applied graph
theory in modeling transport system. Some issues in transportation networks are considered in
the view of graph-theoretical and optimized problems. Then the graph-theoretical approach is
applied to solve these problems.

Keywords: Transport, transport network, graph theory, optimization, network

1. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, researchers always try to apply mathematical achievement in solving practical

problems. Firstly, they take into consideration critical systems such as transportation,
distribution, communication or logistics systems, etc. Clearly, those systems are critical
infrastructures for smoothly performing the social and economic functions. It is, therefore,
very important to maintain these systems in good conditions. Hence, understanding their
impacts as well as the capacity is necessary to keep them in good condition and make them
serve well. Thus, analyzing these systems are placed in the highest priority. However, these
problems become more and more complicated because of existing strong interdependencies
both inside and among different infrastructure systems. After modelling, the second problem
is finding optimal solution(s). Among them, finding the shortest path connecting two points or
the cheapest sub-network connecting every points in the network can be considered as an
example.
In this paper, we consider the graph theoretical approach for modelling transportation network.
Then an approach is proposed to solve some optimal problems in the model, say to find a
maximum (in the cardinality sense) node subset satisfying some given property. In the next
section, we describe some graph theoretical models related to transport network and propose a
general approach for the issue. In Section 3, we summarize previous researches on the issue
and describe some terms as well as concepts. We describe some approaches to tackle the

2094
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

problem, some experiments are also mentioned. Section 4 is devoted to some discussion on
the issue.

2. GRAPH MODEL FOR TRANSPORT NETWORK

It is considered that the very first problem of graph theory is a problem on a transport network,
say the problem of Seven Bridges of Königsberg (Figure 1.).

→ →

Figure 1. Seven bridges of Königsberg and the graph model1

Shortly, the problem asks if there exists a tour visiting all seven bridges of Königsberg, each
bridge exactly one time. By formulating each part of the city by one vertex and an edge for
each bridge, Euler showed the negative answer for the problem. Then the graph model has
been used extensively in many other practical problems. So far, graph theory, the
mathematical field studies on graphs, mathematical structures used to model pairwise
relations between objects, thanks to its broad applications and extensively theoretical
researches, has become a field gaining many attentions of mathematicians as well as practical
experts and applied researchers.
A graph 𝐺 = (𝑉, 𝐸) is the structure consisting of a set of vertices 𝑉 and an edge set 𝐸
connecting them. There are maybe a weighted function 𝑓: 𝑉 → ℤ+ and we have a vertex
weighted graph 𝐺 and/or ℎ: 𝐸 → ℤ+ , i.e. an edge weighted graph. The two most famous
problems related to edge weighted graphs are the shortest path problem and the shortest
spanning tree problem. The first asks for a path between two vertices such that the sum of the
weights of its constituent edges is minimized while the second searches for a set of edges
which connecting all vertices and whose sum of weight is minimum. Both these problems can
be applied in transportation network. The first problem, of course, is for a shortest route
connecting two position of the network, while the second is for a lowest cost subnetwork
connecting entire systems. A review on the shortest spanning tree problem and the network
flow problem can be found in Guze (2014). Following are some other applications.
Flier et al (2010) formulated the problem of dispatching in railways as follows. During
operations, railway dispatchers face the challenging problem of rerouting and rescheduling
trains in the presence of delays. Once a train is delayed, it might be in conflict with other
trains that are planned to use the same track resources. The dispatcher then has to find a new
feasible plan in a very short amount of time. Interestingly enough, these complicated
decisions are carried out mostly by humans today, with only basic computer support such as
graphical monitoring tools. Typically, a railway station is modeled as a graph with vertices
representing points on the tracks and edges representing track segments that connect such
points. We study
the case where the resulting graphs are planar, which is the case for many junctions and
stations. Considering only the aspect of routing, two trains are in conflict if their routes share
a point on the tracks. Hence, conflict free routes correspond to vertex disjoint paths. Not every
route which is physically feasible is desirable in practice, though. Therefore, railway planners

1 Adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Bridges_of_K%C3%B6nigsberg

2095
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

allow for each train only a small set of alternative paths for each train. Let say, for each pair of
terminals (𝑠𝑖 ; 𝑡𝑖 ) of some train 𝑖, there exists a set of feasible routes ℘𝑖 . Then we want to
find a maximum number of vertex disjoint paths 𝑃𝑖1 ; 𝑃𝑖2 ; …; 𝑃𝑖𝑚 , where 𝑃𝑖𝑗 ∈ ℘𝑖 . We
construct a conflict graph 𝐺 = (𝑉, 𝐸) as follows. 𝑉 =∪ ℘𝑖 . Two vertices are adjacent
(connected by an edge) if they belong to the same set ℘𝑖 or they are two routes sharing an
inner point. Then the problem of finding a maximum number of vertex disjoint paths is the
Maximum Independent Set (MIS) problem, i.e. the problem asks for a maximum cardinality
vertex set such that there exists no edge connecting two of them.
There are many practical problems suitable with the above model. An example is Airspace
Planning problem by Sherali et al. (2002). Consider a planning horizon 𝐻, and assume that
we are given a set of flights covering this horizon that are relevant to a certain region of
airspace. For each flight 𝑖, let 𝑃𝑖 be the set of possible flight plans composed of departure
and anticipated arrival times, along with trajectory and cruising altitude information when
traversing a route between the corresponding origin-destination pair. Similar to the above
problem, we want to have a set of flight plans without any conflict, i.e. two flight plant
residents the same sector at the given instant of time. Hence, we can also set up a conflict
graph and try to find a MIS for this. However, since we have air traffic control systems,
Sherali et al. suggested that the system can hold some workload, say allowing a maximum
number of conflicts 𝑘. Now, the problem change to find a maximum (cardinality sense)
vertex subset such that there are at most 𝑘 edges among them.
Another extension of the MIS problem is Maximum 𝑘-independent Set problem, i.e. the
problem asks for a maximum vertex subset such that every vertex is adjacent to at most 𝑘 − 1
other vertices of the set, suggested by Fink and Jacobson (1985). This model can be applied in
the above practical problems if we allow every schedule/plan conflicting with at most 𝑘 − 1
other ones.
A dual problem of the MIS problem is the Minimum Vertex Cover problem, i.e. the problem
asks for a minimum vertex subset such that every edge of the graph is incident to at least one
vertex of the set. For a transport network, we can think about a surveillance system, a set of
sensors put on node such that every link is under the monitoring, i.e. incident to at least one
node equipped with a sensor. Of course, we want some cheapest system, i.e. a system with as
few sensors as possible. Given a graph 𝐺 = (𝑉, 𝐸). Then it is obviously that 𝐼 ⊆ 𝑉 is an
independent set if and only if 𝑉 ∖ 𝐼 is a vertex cover and hence 𝐼 is a maximum
independent set if and only if 𝑉 ∖ 𝐼 is a minimum vertex cover. Brešar et al. (Brešar 2011)
have extended this problem to the Minimum 𝑘-path Vertex Cover problem, i.e. the problem
asks for a minimum (cardinality sense) vertex subset such that every path through 𝑘 vertices
contains at least one vertex of the set. We can use this idea for the bus network. Given a bus
network, where nodes stand for bus stations. Now we want to build up a set of high quality
stations on the existing network, i.e. we want to choose from the existing stations a subset and
enhance them. Of course, we want to save money, i.e. enhance at least stations at possible,
under the constrain that after traveling 𝑘 constituent stations, we have met at least one high
quality stations. A dual version of the Minimum 𝑘-path Vertex Cover problem can be stated
as finding a maximum vertex subset containing no path through 𝑘 vertices.
Another extension of the Minimum Vertex Cover problem is the Minimum Feedback Set
problem, i.e. the problem asks for a minimum vertex subset such that every circle contains at
least one vertex of the set. A dual version of this problem is the Maximum Forest problem, i.e.
the problem asks for a maximum vertex subset such that they contain no cycle. There are also
many other extensions of the MIS problem, for example the maximum induced 𝑘-regular
subgraph problem (Cardoso et al. 2007), graph whose every vertex is adjacent with exactly 𝑘
other vertices.

2096
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

From previous examples, we obtain that there are many graph theoretical and optimization
problems can be used for modelling optimization problems in transport networks. These
networks consist of not, say road networks only, but also railway, air flights, bus networks,
zone network, as well as many transport networks by other means. These problems can be
stated as following. Given a graph 𝐺 = (𝑉, 𝐸), where 𝑉 is the vertex set, each vertex stands
for a node or an object in the network, and 𝐸 is the edge set, each edge stands for a link, a
connection, a relation, or a conflict between two objects. For simplification, in this paper, we
consider only simple graphs, i.e. graphs without loop, i.e. an edge connecting a vertex with
that vertex itself, and for every pair of vertices, there is at most one edge connecting them, i.e.
graphs without multiple edge. We also assume that our graphs are undirected, i.e. every
relation between objects is two-way. And unless state other, every graph is unweighted graph,
i.e. there is no weighted function associating with the graphs. Given such a graph, we try to
find a maximum or minimum (in cardinality) set of vertices such that they together with edges
among them possess some particular property. However, by consider dual versions, we can
limit ourselves on considering maximizing problems only. Such a problem is called a
Maximum Π-set problem (Lê 2016), where Π is some particular graph property. In the next
section, we describe some considerations on the issue as well as some approaches to tackling
the problems.

3. MAXIMUM 𝚷-SET PROBLEM

Yannakakis (1978,1981), Krishnamoorthy and Deo (1979), and Lewis and Yannakakis (1980)
also researched on the problem under the name Node-deletion problem, i.e. the problems asks
for the minimum vertex set to be deleted together with incident edges from a given graph such
that the remaining satisfies some given property. They showed that the problem is NP-hard in
general if the property Π is non-trivial, i.e. there exist infinitely many graphs satisfying Π
and infinitely many graphs not satisfying Π, and hereditary, i.e. if a graph 𝐺 satisfies Π,
then the graph obtained by deletion a vertex together with incident edges from 𝐺 satisfies Π.
By NP-hard (Garey and Johnson 1979), we mean that so far, it is impossible to find effective
(polynomial time complexity) algorithms for such problems. In (Lê 2016), we also obtained
that the problem is also NP-hard if the property Π is of the form 𝐹-induced, i.e. every
connected component of a graph 𝐺 is isomorphic to some graph belong to a given graph set
𝐹, and the maximum degree of 𝐹 is finite. Following are some notations and explanations of
some concepts in graph theory.
A graph 𝐺 is connected if every pair of vertices is connected by some path. If 𝐺 is not
connected, then it can be partition into connected components, i.e. two vertices of the same
component are connected while vertices from different components are not connected. For a
vertex 𝑢 ∈ 𝑉(𝐺), we denote the neighborhood of 𝑢 by 𝑁(𝑢) = {𝑣 ∈ 𝑉(𝐺)|𝑢𝑣 ∈ 𝐸(𝐺)}.
𝑑(𝑢) = |𝑁(𝑢)|, the cardinality of the neighborhood of 𝑢, is called the degree of 𝑢. For a
graph 𝐺, ∆(𝐺) = max 𝑑(𝑢) is the maximum degree of 𝐺 and for a graph set 𝐹, ∆(𝐹) =
𝑢∈𝑉(𝐺)
sup ∆(𝐺) is the maximum degree of 𝐹. If ∆(𝐹) < ∞, then we call 𝐹 is of maximum finite
𝐺∈𝐹
degree. For a graph set 𝐹 and a graph class 𝐺, we say that 𝐺 is 𝐹-free or 𝐹 is the induced
forbidden subgraph set of 𝐺 if no graph of 𝐺 contains a graph of 𝐹 as an induced
subgraph.
Since the problems are NP-hard in general, there are some attempts to find some graph classes,
in which, we have polynomial time complexity algorithms. Most of these classes are given
under some set of forbidden induced subgraph set. Some examples are the solutions for the
MIS problem in 𝑆1,1,2 -free graphs (Alekseev 1999), 𝑃5 -free graphs (Lokshtanov et al. 2013),

2097
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

solutions for other problems, e.g. Maximum Induced Matching problem (Dabrowski et al.
2013), Minimum 𝑘-path Vertex Cover (Brešar et al. 2013), Minimum Feedback Vertex Cover
(Takaoka et al. 2012). For the details of the forbidden induced subgraph set and the problems,
please see the corresponding references.
In (Lê 2016), we suggested that we can use the augmenting graph technique to solve some
Maximum Π-set Problems in polynomial complexity time in (𝑆1,2,𝑘 , banner𝑘 , 𝑍𝑘 , 𝐾1,𝑚 )-free
graphs (see Figure 2.). Interesting that almost every transport network satisfies this forbidden
condition. For example, consider a road network, clearly, for large enough 𝑚 and 𝑘, we
could not have any junction having 𝑚 routes out neither long enough road get through 𝑘
junctions to have any configuration of the form 𝑆1,2,𝑘 , banner𝑘 , 𝑍𝑘 . Hence, we can obtain
polynomial time complexity algorithms for many Maximum Π-set Problems. The readers are
encouraged to have a look on the reference to have the full list of these problems.

i
1
2
k 2 1
2
m Bk
1 K1,m
k 2 1
1 1
2 2 Zk
j Si,j,k k
Figure 2. Some Forbidden Induced Subgraphs
However, even for the polynomial time complexity, the above algorithms often lead to quite
high order of the polynomials. This means, even for not large networks, the running time of
the algorithm is unacceptable.
Hence, we suggest that some heuristics algorithms should be used. Three simple algorithms
for the MIS problem are MIN (Murphy 1991), MAX (Griggs 1981), and VO (Vertex
Ordering) (Mahadev and Reed 1999). A summarized consideration on these problem can be
found in Lê et al. (2017).
MIN starts with an empty independent set 𝐼. Then the algorithm repeatedly chooses a vertex
of minimum degree from a graph 𝐺, adds this vertex to 𝐼, and removes the vertex from 𝐺
until 𝐺 contains no remaining vertex.
MAX repeatedly chooses a vertex of maximum degree from a graph 𝐺, removes the vertex
from 𝐺 until 𝐺 contains no remaining edge. Then the remaining vertices compose a desired
independent set.
VO first orders the vertex set of a graph 𝐺 in increasing degree order. Then it proceeds
through the list and adds vertices to the being constructed independent set if they are
non-adjacent to any vertices in the current set.
Note that, these algorithms produce not a maximum independent set but a maximal (inclusion
sense) one. However, it is easy to check that they have 𝑂(𝑛2 ) complexity time, hence give a
good enough solution for the problem in acceptable time. Moreover, in Lê et al. (2017), a
hybrid method, named MMIN, mixing MIN and 𝛼 -redundant method (Brandstädt and
Hammer 2007) was proposed. MMIN works like MIN, except before accepting the min
degree vertex in the being constructed independent set, we first check if it satisfies some
sufficient condition for 𝛼-redundance and rejects the vertex if the positive answer is obtained.
The extra steps give us 𝑂(𝑛5 ) time complexity for MMIN. Here, a vertex 𝑢 is 𝛼-redundant,

2098
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

i.e. it can be removed without changing the cardinality of the maximum independent set, if
there exist two vertices 𝑣1 and 𝑣2 such that 𝑣1 𝑢𝑣2 is an induced 𝑃3 , but there exist no
vertices 𝑢1 , 𝑢2 such that (𝑢, 𝑢1 , 𝑢2 , 𝑣1 , 𝑣2 ) induces a 𝑃5 , a banner or a 𝐾2,3 (see Figure
3.).
u u u u

P3 P5 banner K2,3
Figure 3. P3, P5, banner, K2,3
Table 1 shows the experiment results of the above algorithms on some transport networks.
From the table, the two most successful algorithms are MIN and MMIN, and in most of the
cases, MMIN outperformed MIN a little bit. In the table, the reader also can find the results of
MINk, where 𝑘 = 2 and 𝑘 = 3.

Network No. No. MIN MAX VO MMIN MIN2 MIN3

Nodes Links
Chicago 12979 20627 6257 5940 5755 6255 7421 8872
Regional
Friedrichshain 224 376 107 105 103 107 130 154
Center
Austin 7388 10591 3479 3317 3287 3482 4279 5332
Anaheim 416 634 183 180 177 184 238 303
Berlin Center 12981 21470 5887 5716 5620 5907 7407 9119
Birmingham 14369 20948 6505 6145 6108 6513 8432 10585
Philadelphia 13389 21246 5898 5604 5482 5916 7147 8996
Sydney 33113 38962 17122 16288 16055 17122 21424 26784
Winnipeg 1040 1595 449 426 418 450 584 742
Table 1. Experimental results of some sequential heuristic algorithms for the
MIS problem and Maximum 𝑘-independent Set on some real transport
networks
(the networks were adapted to have simple, undirected graphs)

These algorithms can also be easily extended for other problems. For example, the following
algorithm is the modified version of MIN for the Maximum 𝑘-independent Set problem.

Algorithm 1. MINk
Input: A graph 𝐺 = (𝑉, 𝐸)
Output: A maximal (inclusion sense) Maximum 𝑘-independent Set
1. 𝐼: = ∅;
2. While 𝑉(𝐺) ≠ ∅ Do
3. Let 𝑢 ∈ 𝑉 be a minimum degree vertex;
4. If 𝑢 and every 𝑣 ∈ 𝐼 have at most 𝑘 − 1 neighbours in 𝐼 ∪ {𝑢} Then
5. 𝐼 ≔ 𝐼 ∪ {𝑢};
6. 𝐺 ≔ 𝐺 − 𝑢;
7. EndWhile
8. Return 𝐼;
Table 2. Algorithm MIN for the Maximum 𝑘-independent Set problem

2099
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

4. DISCUSSION

Graph is a natural model for transport networks. Graph topology can be used for all means of
transport network, from metropolitan network to road network or zone network, from railway
network to flight network. In literature, there are some graph theoretical and optimization
problems have been used to model some optimization problems in transportation.
In graph theory, there are many extensive researches on these problems have been done.
Although, most of the problems are NP-hard, i.e. we have no effective algorithms in general.
However, by considering the transport networks carefully, we can obtain some polynomial
time complexity algorithm for most of the case. Moreover, if the order of the polynomial of
the complexity is large then we can think about some heuristic methods, which give us good
enough solutions in timely fashion. Hence, having a look on new achievements of graph
theory and try to apply them in practical problems in transportation is a very potential
approach to handle complicated and complex issues and it is also a focus of this paper.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is supported by National Foundation for Science and Technology Development
(NAFOSTED) of Vietnam, project code: 101.99-2016.20.

REFERENCES

Alekseev, V. E. (1999) A Polynomial Algorithm for Finding Maximum Independent Set

in Fork-free Graphs, Discrete Anal Operation Research Serie 1, 3-19 (Russian).
Brandstädt, A. and Hammer, P. L. (2007), A Note on 𝛼-redundant Vertices in Graphs,
Discrete Applied Mathematics, 108 (3), 301-308.
Brešar, B., Kardoš, F., Katrenič, J., and Semanišin, G. (2011) Minimum 𝑘-path Vertex
Cover, Discrete Applied Mathematics, 159 (12), 1189-1195.
Brešar, B., Jakovac, M., Katrenič, J., Semanišin, G., and Taranenko, A. (2013) On the
Vertex 𝑘-path Cover, Discrete Applied Mathematics, 161, 1943-1949.
Cardoso, B. M., Kamiński, M., Lozin, V. (2007) Maximum 𝑘 -regular Induced
Subgraphs, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, 14, 455-463.
Dabrowski, K. K., Demange, M., and Lozin, V., V., New Results on Maximum Induced
Matchings in Bipartite Graphs and Beyond, Theoretical Computer Science, 478,
33-40.
Fink, J. F. and Jacobson, M. S. (1985) 𝑛-domination 𝑛-dependence and Forbidden
Subgraphs, Graph Theory with Applications to Algorithms and Computer Science,
John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 301-311.
Flier, H., Mihalák, M., Schöbel, A., Widmayer, P., and Zych, A. (2010) Vertex Disjoint
Paths for Dispatching in Railways. Proceeding of the 10th Workshop on Algorithmic
Approaches for Transportation Modelling, Optimization, and Systems, ATNMOS
2010, Liverpool, United Kingdom, September, 61-73.
Garey, M. and Johnson, D. S. (1979) Computers and Intractability: A Guide to the
Theory of NP-Completeness, W. H. Freeman and & Co.
Griggs, J. R. (1981) Lower Bounds on the Independence Number in Terms of the
Degree, Combinatorica, 1 (2), 169-197.
Guze, S. (2014) Graph Theory Approach to Transportation Systems Design and
Optimization, Transnav, 8 (4), 571-578.
Krishnamoorthy, M. S. and Deo, N. (1979) Node-Deletion NP-Complete Problems, Siam

2100
Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol.12, 2017

Journal of Computing, 8 (4), 619-625.

Lê, N. C. (2016) Augmenting Approach for Some Maximum Set Problems, Discrete
Mathematics, 339 (8), 2186-2197.
Lê, N. C., Brause, C., and Schiermeyer, I. (2017) On Sequential Heuristic Methods for
the Maximum Independent Set Problem, Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory,
to be appeared.
Lewis, J. M. and Yannakakis, M. (1980) The Node-Deletion Problem for Hereditary
Properties in NP-Complete, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, 20 (2)
219-230.
Lokhshtanov, D., Vatshelle, M., and Villanger, Y. (2014) Independent Set in 𝑃5 -free
Graphs in Polynomial Time, Proceeding of the 25th Annual, ACM-SIAM Symposium
on Discrete Algorithms, 570-581.
Mahadev, N. V. R and Reed, B. A. (1999) A Note on Vertex Order for Stability Number,
Journal of Graph Theory, 30 (2), 113-120.
Murphy, O. J. (1991) Lower Bounds on the Stability Number of Graphs Computed in
Terms of Degrees, Discrete Mathematics, 90 (2), 207-211.
Sherali, H. D., Smith, J. C., and Trani, A. A. (2002) An Airspace Planning Model for
Selecting Flight-plans Under Workload, Safety and Equity Considerations.
Transportation Science, 36 (4), 378-397.
Takaoka, A., Tayu, S., and Ueno, S. (2012) On Minimum Feedback Vertex Sets in
Graphs, 3rd International Conference on Networking and Computing, Tamilnadu,
India, July 26-28.
Yannnakakis, M. (1978), Node-and Edge-deletion NP-Complete Problems, Proceedings
of the 10th Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, ACM Press, 253-264.
Yannakakis, M (1981), Node-deletion Problems on Bipartite Graphs, Siam Journal of
Computing, 10, 310-327.

2101