Interactive tool
Route Algorithm Explorer
Compare Breadth-First Search, Dijkstra, A*, and bidirectional search on exactly the same synthetic road network.
Change endpoints, add traffic, block roads, inspect the search frontier, race all four algorithms, share a reproducible experiment, or run the benchmark lab.
Interactive computer-science lab
Route Algorithm Explorer
Pick two intersections. Add traffic. Watch four pathfinding algorithms solve the same synthetic road network.
Try an experiment
Start with a question, not an empty graph
Measured search work
Results
Run an algorithm to see metrics.
Advanced mode
Algorithm internals
Run an algorithm to inspect the frontier and scores.
- Nodes explored
- Nodes removed from the frontier and expanded by the algorithm.
- Frontier
- Discovered nodes that may still be explored.
- Path cost
- The sum of the current edge weights on the final route.
Benchmark Lab
Compare many random routes on this graph
This lab compares Dijkstra, A*, and bidirectional Dijkstra across many reproducible start/destination pairs. The primary metric is nodes explored, not browser milliseconds.
Use this in your classroom
Free for teaching and demonstrations
Link to a reproducible experiment, embed it in course material, or export a result for slides. Shared results describe this synthetic graph and this implementation; they are not universal performance benchmarks.
Methodology
The tool uses synthetic weighted graphs generated locally in the browser. Breadth-First Search minimizes edge count. Dijkstra, A*, and bidirectional Dijkstra use non-negative weighted edge costs. A* uses an admissible straight-line lower bound derived from the minimum cost-per-distance ratio in the current graph.
Browser computation time is shown only as a local diagnostic. The primary comparison is search work: nodes explored, frontier size, path cost, and search coverage.
Related explanation
For the full routing context, readHow Does Google Maps Find the Fastest Route So Quickly?