Optimal route of road networks by dynamic programming

Abstract

This paper introduces an iterative Q value updating algorithm based on dynamic programming for searching the optimal route and its optimal traveling time for a given origin-destination (OD) pair of road networks. The proposed algorithm finds the optimal route based on the local traveling time information available at each adjacent intersection. For all the intersections of the road network, Q values are introduced for determining the optimal route. When the Q values converge, we can get the optimal route from multiple sources to single destination. If there exist multiple routes with the same traveling time, the proposed method can find all of it. When the traveling time of the road links change, an alternative optimal route is found starting with the already obtained Q values. The proposed method was applied to a grid like road network and the results show that the optimal route can be found in a small number of iterations.