| Article ID: | iaor20001752 |
| Country: | Portugal |
| Volume: | 19 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Start Page Number: | 43 |
| End Page Number: | 60 |
| Publication Date: | Jun 1999 |
| Journal: | Investigao Operacional |
| Authors: | Martins Ernesto de Queirs Vieira, Pascoal Marta Margarida Braz, Rasteiro Deolinda Maria Lopes Dias, Santos Jos Luis Esteves dos |
In this paper, the optimal path problem will be studied from a global point of view and having no restrictions imposed on the network. The concepts of boundness and finiteness will be presented for the general problem and will be studied in two particular cases. Special emphasis will be given to the optimality principle since it allows one to design a class of algorithms – the labelling algorithms – which determine an optimal path when the weak optimality principle is satisfied. Its importance will be stressed by two problems which, in its turn, are similar in their description and completely different in what concerns their resolution.