The temporal network point type tnpoint allows to represent the movement of objects over a network. It corresponds to the temporal point type tgeompoint restricted to two-dimensional coordinates. As all the other temporal types it comes in trhee subtypes, namely, instant, sequence, and sequence set. Examples of tnpoint values in these subtypes are given next.

SELECT tnpoint 'Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-01';
SELECT tnpoint '{Npoint(1, 0.3)@2001-01-01, Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-02,
  Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03}';
SELECT tnpoint '[Npoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, Npoint(1, 0.4)@2001-01-02,
  Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03]';
SELECT tnpoint '{[Npoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, Npoint(1, 0.4)@2001-01-02,
  Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03], [Npoint(2, 0.6)@2001-01-04, Npoint(2, 0.6)@2001-01-05]}';

The temporal network point type accepts type modifiers (or typmod in PostgreSQL terminology). The possible values for the type modifier are Instant, Sequence, and SequenceSet. If no type modifier is specified for a column, values of any subtype are allowed.

SELECT tnpoint(Sequence) '[Npoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, Npoint(1, 0.4)@2001-01-02,
  Npoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03]';
SELECT tnpoint(Sequence) 'Npoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01';
-- ERROR: Temporal type (Instant) does not match column type (Sequence)

Temporal network point values of sequence subtype and linear or step interpolation must be defined on a single route. Therefore, a value of sequence set subtype is needed for representing the movement of an object that traverses several routes, even if there is no temporal gap. For example, in the following value

SELECT tnpoint '{[NPoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, NPoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03),
  [NPoint(2, 0.4)@2001-01-03, NPoint(2, 0.6)@2001-01-04)}';

the network point changes its route at 2001-01-03.

Temporal network point values of sequence or sequence set subtype are converted into a normal form so that equivalent values have identical representations. For this, consecutive instant values are merged when possible. Three consecutive instant values can be merged into two if the linear functions defining the evolution of values are the same. Examples of transformation into a normal form are as follows.

SELECT tnpoint '[NPoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, NPoint(1, 0.4)@2001-01-02,
  NPoint(1, 0.6)@2001-01-03)';
-- [NPoint(1,0.2)@2001-01-01, NPoint(1,0.6)@2001-01-03)
SELECT tnpoint '{[NPoint(1, 0.2)@2001-01-01, NPoint(1, 0.3)@2001-01-02,
  NPoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03), [NPoint(1, 0.5)@2001-01-03, NPoint(1, 0.7)@2001-01-04)}';
-- {[NPoint(1,0.2)@2001-01-01, NPoint(1,0.3)@2001-01-02, NPoint(1,0.7)@2001-01-04)}