Reliable and Restricted Quickest Path Problems

In a dynamic network, the quickest path problem asks for a path minimizing the time needed to send a given amount of flow from source to sink along this path. In practical settings, for example in evacuation or transportation planning, the reliability of network arcs depends on the specific scenario of interest. In this circumstance, the question of finding a quickest path among all those having at least a desired path reliability arises. In this article, this reliable quickest path problem is solved by transforming it to the restricted quickest path problem. In the latter, each arc is associated a nonnegative cost value and the goal is to find a quickest path among those not exceeding a predefined budget with respect to the overall (additive) cost value. For both, the restricted and reliable quickest path problem, pseudopolynomial exact algorithms and fully polynomial-time approximation schemes are proposed.