Constrained range search query processing on road networks

Range search is one of the most common queries in the spatial databases and geographic information systems (GIS). Most range search processing depends on the length of the distance that expresses the relative position of the objects of interest in the Euclidean space or road networks. But, in reality, the expected result is normally constrained by other factors (e.g. number of spatial objects, pre-defined area, and so forth.) rather than the distance alone; hence, range search should be comprehensively discussed in various scenarios. In this paper, we propose two constrained range search approaches based on network Voronoi diagram, namely Region Constrained Range (RCR) and k nearest neighbor Constrained Range (kCR), which make the range search query processing more flexible to satisfy different requirements in a complex environment. The performance of these approaches is analyzed and evaluated to illustrate that both of them can process constrained range search queries very efficiently. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.