  This paper is concerned with the automated complexity analysis of term
rewrite systems (TRSs for short) and the ramification of these in implicit
computational complexity theory (ICC for short). We introduce a novel path
order with multiset status, the polynomial path order POP*. Essentially relying
on the principle of predicative recursion as proposed by Bellantoni and Cook,
its distinct feature is the tight control of resources on compatible TRSs: The
(innermost) runtime complexity of compatible TRSs is polynomially bounded. We
have implemented the technique, as underpinned by our experimental evidence our
approach to the automated runtime complexity analysis is not only feasible, but
compared to existing methods incredibly fast. As an application in the context
of ICC we provide an order-theoretic characterisation of the polytime
computable functions. To be precise, the polytime computable functions are
exactly the functions computable by an orthogonal constructor TRS compatible
with POP*.
