
arXiv: 2507.09688
ABSTRACT Peak cost is a novel objective for flows over time that describes the amount of workforce necessary to run a system. We focus on minimizing peak costs in the context of maximum temporally repeated flows and formulate the corresponding MPC‐MTRF problem. First, we discuss the limitations that emerge when restricting the solution space to integral temporally repeated flows, which is motivated by practical applications. We show that, in general, MPC‐MTRF has an integrality gap of and an arbitrarily bad approximation ratio compared to general flows over time. We proceed with a complexity analysis for MPC‐MTRF and show that both the decision version and the optimization version of integral MPC‐MTRF are strongly ‐hard, even under strong restrictions. On the positive side, we identify two special cases that are solvable in polynomial time: unit‐cost series‐parallel networks and networks with time horizon at least twice as long as the longest path in the network with respect to the transit time. Moreover, in both cases, we provide an explicit algorithm that constructs an integral optimal solution.
FOS: Computer and information sciences, Data Structures and Algorithms, Data Structures and Algorithms (cs.DS), info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/620, 620
FOS: Computer and information sciences, Data Structures and Algorithms, Data Structures and Algorithms (cs.DS), info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/620, 620
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 0 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
