l-facial edge colorings of graphs

Abstract

An l-facial edge coloring of a plane graph is a coloring of the edges such that any two edges at distance at most l on a boundary walk of some face receive distinct colors. It is conjectured that 3l + 1 colors suffice for an l-facial edge coloring of any plane graph. We prove that 7 colors suffice for a 2-facial edge coloring of any plane graph and therefore confirm the conjecture for l = 2.