Note on the problem of partially link disjoint paths

This paper discusses the problem of partially link disjoint paths in communication networks. The problem is situated in between the well-known shortest path generation and the synthesis of two disjoint paths. The contributions of this paper are twofold: firstly, topologies and relevant graph properties are investigated and the degree of divergence is defined as a metric to distinguish the degree of commonality for the two partially disjoint paths. Secondly, heuristic approaches are introduced that solve the problem of generating partly disjoint paths.