The goal of a hub-based distance labeling scheme for a network G = (V, E) is to assign a small subset S(u) @math V to each node u @math V, in such a way that for any pair of nodes u, v, the intersection of hub sets S(u) @math S(v) contains a node on the shortest uv-path. The existence of small hub sets, and consequently efficient shortest path processing algorithms, for road networks is an empirical observation. A theoretical explanation for this phenomenon was proposed by (SODA 2010) through a network parameter they called highway dimension, which captures the size of a hitting set for a collection of shortest paths of length at least r intersecting a given ball of radius 2r. In this work, we revisit this explanation, introducing a more tractable (and directly comparable) parameter based solely on the structure of shortest-path spanning trees, which we call skeleton dimension. We show that skeleton dimension admits an intuitive definition for both directed and undirected graphs, provides a way of computing labels more efficiently than by using highway dimension, and leads to comparable or stronger theoretical bounds on hub set size.
For an unweighted graph @math , @math is a subgraph if @math , and @math is a Steiner graph if @math , and for any pair of vertices @math , the distance between them in @math (denoted @math ) is at least the distance between them in @math (denoted @math ). In this paper we introduce the notion of distance preserver. A subgraph (resp., Steiner graph) @math of a graph @math is a subgraph (resp., Steiner) @math -preserver of @math if for every pair of vertices @math with @math , @math . We show that any graph (resp., digraph) has a subgraph @math -preserver with at most @math edges (resp., arcs), and there are graphs and digraphs for which any undirected Steiner @math -preserver contains @math edges. However, we show that if one allows a directed Steiner (diSteiner) @math -preserver, then these bounds can be improved. Specifically, we show that for any graph or digraph there exists a diSteiner @math -preserver with @math arcs, and that this result is tight up to a constant factor. We also study @math -preserving distance labeling schemes, that are labeling schemes that guarantee precise calculation of distances between pairs of vertices that are at a distance of at least @math one from another. We show that there exists a @math -preserving labeling scheme with labels of size @math , and that labels of size @math are required for any @math -preserving labeling scheme. A distance labeling scheme labels the n nodes of a graph with binary strings such that, given the labels of any two nodes, one can determine the distance in the graph between the two nodes by looking only at the labels. A D-preserving distance labeling scheme only returns precise distances between pairs of nodes that are at distance at least D from each other. In this paper we consider distance labeling schemes for the classical case of unweighted and undirected graphs. We present the first distance labeling scheme of size opnq for sparse graphs (and hence bounded degree graphs). This addresses an open problem by Gavoille et. al. [J. Algo. 2004], hereby separating the complexity from general graphs which require pnq size Moon [Proc. of Glasgow Math. Association 1965]. As an intermediate result we give a Op n D log