The Ferry Cover Problem on Regular Graphs and Small-Degree Graphs

The ferry problem may be viewed as generalizations of the classical wolf-goat-cabbage puzzle. The ferry cover problem is to determine the minimum required boat capacity to safely transport n items represented by a conflict graph. The Alcuin number of a conflict graph is the smallest capacity of a boat for which the graph possesses a feasible ferry schedule. In this paper the authors determine the Alcuin number of regular graphs and graphs with maximum degree at most five.