Bidirectional Dijkstra - Family of functions¶

Synopsis¶

Based on Dijkstra’s algorithm, the bidirectional search finds a shortest path a starting vertex to an ending vertex.

It runs two simultaneous searches: one forward from the source, and one backward from the target, stopping when the two meet in the middle.

This implementation can be used with a directed graph and an undirected graph.

Characteristics¶

The main Characteristics are:

• Process is done only on edges with positive costs.

• A negative value on a cost column is interpreted as the edge does not exist.

• Values are returned when there is a path.

• When there is no path:

• When the starting vertex and ending vertex are the same.

• The aggregate cost of the non included values $$(v, v)$$ is $$0$$

• When the starting vertex and ending vertex are the different and there is no path:

• The aggregate cost the non included values $$(u, v)$$ is $$\infty$$

• For optimization purposes, any duplicated value in the starting vertices or on the ending vertices are ignored.

• Running time (worse case scenario): $$O((V \log V + E))$$

• For large graphs where there is a path bewtween the starting vertex and ending vertex:

• It is expected to terminate faster than pgr_dijkstra