Algorithms of multi-modal route planning based on the concept of switch point

The paper addresses the task of generi-cally finding the shortest path in multi-modal networks with the multi-modal route planning problem in transportation field as a special case. The multimodal networks can be modelled by a data structure based on the core concept of Switch Point which abstracts the places where it is allowed for changing from one mode to another. Two routing algorithms Multi-Modal Bellman-Ford (MMBF) and Multi-Modal Dijkstra (MMD) were elicited which are respectively rooted in the classical label-correcting and label-setting methods. Both MMBF and MMD are capable of finding in multi-modal networks the shortest paths in spite of different computing complexity. The feasibility of the approach was verified in our prototype system. The results of our experiments conducted on real transportation networks showed the differences between the proposed algorithms in terms of computing performance.