A note on interval colourings of graphs

A graph is said to be interval colourable if it admits a proper edge-colouring using palette $\mathbb{N}$ in which the set of colours incident to each vertex is an interval. The interval colouring thickness of a graph $G$ is the minimum $k$ such that $G$ can be edge-decomposed into $k$ interval colourable graphs. We show that $\theta (n)$, the maximum interval colouring thickness of an $n$-vertex graph, satisfies $\theta (n)=\mathrm{\Omega }(\log (n)\mathrm{/}\log \log (n))$ and $\theta (n)\le n^{5\mathrm{/}6+o(1)}$, which improves on the trivial lower bound and an upper bound of the first author and Zheng. As a corollary, we answer a question of Asratian, Casselgren, and Petrosyan and disprove a conjecture of Borowiecka-Olszewska, Drgas-Burchardt, Javier-Nol, and Zuazua. We also confirm a conjecture of the first author that any interval colouring of an $n$-vertex planar graph uses at most $3n\mathrm{/}2-2$ colours.