Optimal interval partitioning for temporal databases

We analyse the problem of partitioning a collection of intervals into two or more subcollections, each of them holding intervals that intersect with a certain range of the intervals' domain. Intervals that intersect with more than one range impose a considerable overhead on processing and indexing interval data. The goal of interval partitioning (IP) is to find partitions that minimise the number of overlapping intervals. We describe an algorithm for finding optimal partitions and prove its correctness. An example scenario that is used throughout the paper gives an idea of the benefits of optimal interval partitioning.