Unsplittable Multicommodity Flows in Outerplanar Graphs

Abstract

We consider the problem of multicommodity flows in outerplanar graphs. Okamura and Seymour showed that the cut-condition is sufficient for routing demands in outerplanar graphs. We consider the unsplittable version of the problem and prove that if the cut-condition is satisfied, then we can route each demand along a single path by exceeding the capacity of an edge by no more than $\frac{18}{5}\cdot d_{max}$, where $d_{max}$ is the value of the maximum demand.

Full version of IPCO 2025 paper