Weighted Optimal Sequenced Group Trip Planning Queries

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new variant of group trip planning (GTP) queries in spatial databases with weighted point of interests (POIs), called Weighted optimal Sequenced Group Trip Planning (WSGTP) query. Specifically, we focus on the sequenced version of the query where the order of visiting POI types are fixed by the users. Traditional GTP queries consider unweighted POIs which means all POIs are equal, whereas in WSGTP queries, each POI has a weight that determines its utility to the users. Given source and destination locations of a group of users and a set of POI types to be visited by the group in the given order, a WSGTP query retrieves an optimal POI set, consisting of one POI of each type, from a location database. Unlike traditional GTP queries that minimize traveling distance of the group, the optimal POI set of a WSGTP query minimizes a cost function which implies minimizing the aggregate group trip distance as well as maximizing the aggregate utility obtained from the POIs. Thus, WSGTP query returns the best solution for a group trip in weighted POI scenarios. We provide an efficient solution to process WSGTP queries in both Euclidean space and road networks. Experiments show that our approach can compute WSGTP query solutions within reasonable time bounds and significantly outperforms a straight-forward approach.