The multiroute maximum flow problem revisited

  • Authors:
  • Donglei Du;R. Chandrasekaran

  • Affiliations:
  • Faculty of Business Administration, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, NB Canada E3B 5A3;Department of Computer Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75083

  • Venue:
  • Networks
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

We are given a directed network G = (V,A,u) with vertex set V, arc set A, a source vertex s ∈ V, a destination vertex t ∈ V, a finite capacity vector u = {uij}(i,j)∈A, and a positive integer m ∈ Z+. The multiroute maximum flow problem (m-MFP) generalizes the ordinary maximum flow problem by seeking a maximum flow from s to t subject to not only the regular flow conservation constraints at the vertices (except s and t) and the flow capacity constraints at the arcs, but also the extra constraints that any flow must be routed along m arc-disjoint s-t paths. In this article, we devise two new combinatorial algorithms for m-MFP. One is based on Newton's method and another is based on an augmenting-path technique. We also show how the Newton-based algorithm unifies two existing algorithms, and how the augmenting-path algorithm is strongly polynomial for case m = 2. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 47(2), 81–92 2006