Finding (number of) overlaps in a list of time ranges

Question

Given a list of time ranges, I need to find the maximum number of overlaps.

Following is a dataset showing a 10 minute interval of calls, from which I am trying to f

Answer 1

It's amazing how for some problems solutions sometimes just pop out of one mind... and I think I probably the simplest solution ;)

You can represent the times in seconds, from the beginning of your range (0) to its end (600). A call is a pair of times.

Python algorithm:

def maxSimultaneousCalls(calls):
  """Returns the maximum number of simultaneous calls
  calls   : list of calls
    (represented as pairs [begin,end] with begin and end in seconds)
  """
  # Shift the calls so that 0 correspond to the beginning of the first call
  min = min([call[0] for call in calls])

  tmpCalls = [(call[0] - min, call[1] - min) for call in calls]
  max = max([call[1] for call in tmpCalls])

  # Find how many calls were active at each second during the interval [0,max]
  seconds = [0 for i in range(0,max+1)]
  for call in tmpCalls:
    for i in range(call[0],call[1]):
      seconds[i] += 1

  return max(seconds)

Note that I don't know which calls were active at this time ;)

But in term of complexity it's extremely trivial to evaluate: it's linear in term of the total duration of the calls.