A New Formulation of The Shortest Path Problem with On-Time Arrival Reliability

Abstract: We study stochastic routing in the PAth-CEntric (PACE) uncertain road network model. In the PACE model, uncertain travel times are associated with not only edges but also some paths. The uncertain travel times associated with paths are able to well capture the travel time dependency among different edges. This significantly improves the accuracy of travel time distribution estimations for arbitrary paths, which is a fundamental functionality in stochastic routing, compared to classic uncertain road network models where uncertain travel times are associated with only edges. We investigate a new formulation of the shortest path with on-time arrival reliability (SPOTAR) problem under the PACE model. Given a source, a destination, and a travel time budget, the SPOTAR problem aims at finding a path that maximizes the on-time arrival probability. We develop a generic algorithm with different speed-up strategies to solve the SPOTAR problem under the PACE model. Empirical studies with substantial GPS trajectory data offer insight into the design properties of the proposed algorithm and confirm that the algorithm is effective. This report extends the paper "Stochastic Shortest Path Finding in Path-Centric Uncertain Road Networks", to appear in IEEE MDM 2018, by providing a concrete running example of the studied SPOTAR problem in the PACE model and additional statistics of the used GPS trajectories in the experiments.