A Group Based Approach for Path Queries in Road Networks

The advancement of mobile technologies and map-based applications enables a user to access a wide variety of location-based services that range from information queries to navigation systems. Due to the popularity of map-based applications among the users, the service provider often requires to answer a large number of simultaneous (or contemporary) queries. Thus, processing queries efficiently on spatial networks (i.e., road networks) have become an important research area in recent years. In this paper, we focus on path queries that find the shortest path between a source and a destination of the user. In particular, we address the problem of finding the shortest paths for a large number of simultaneous path queries in road networks. Traditional systems that consider one query at a time are not suitable for many applications due to high computational and service cost overhead. We propose an efficient group based approach that provides a practical solution with reduced cost. The key concept of our approach is to group queries that share a common travel path and then compute the shortest path for the group. Experimental results show the effectiveness and efficiency of our group based approach.