III) Transportation Problems (TP)

 Linear programming (LP) is used not only in analysis plans of investments, but also in the fields of
transportation and shipping. In fact, one of the first applications of LP was to the problem of
minimizing the cost of transporting materials. Problems of this type are often used to planning routes
of transportation (involving also graph theory), to determine the ‚optimal’ locations of warehouses,
and to develop the moust efficient procedures for getting goods to people. These is the reason why
are reffered to as: transportation problems.
 A typical transportation problem, involves to determine the least-cost scheme for delivering a
commodity which is stocked in a number of different warehouses to a number of different locations,
say retail stores.
 Of course, in (moust of) practical applications it is necessary to consider problems involving dozen
or even hundreds of warehouses, and possibly just as many or more delivery locations (retail stores).
For problems on such a grand scale, even SIMPLEX alghoritm it’s ˝too slow˝!
 For this kind of transportation problems, the SIMPLEX method was been ‚improved’, resulting a
new alghoritm: Transportation Problem solving Alghoritm (TPA).

III.1) Economical problem and mathematical model attached:

Economical problem
„ A transportation company must to carried out from the origins (warehouses) W1,W2 ,.., Wi,...,Wm which
conteins some commodities in quantities a1,a2,..,ai,...,am to the destinations (retail stores) S1,S2,..,Sj,..,Sn
which demands the quantities b1,b2,..,bj,..,bm. The unitary cost to delivery un product from Wi to the Sj it is
noted with cij. Find an „optimal” transportation plan to delivery the commodities (minimal cost to transport
all products from the warehouses to the retail stores).”
If, we note: xij - the quantity of commodities taked from warehouse Wi and transported to the store

Sj, than all the data could be showed in the table (TP table) form such bellow:

S1 S2 …....... Sj …......... Sn
c11 c12 c1j c1n
W1 ......... ……… a1
x11 x12 x1j x1n
c21 c22 c2 j c2n
W2 …..... ……... a2
x21 x22 x2j x2n
       
ci1 ci2 cij cin
Wi …..... ............ ai
xi1 xi2 xij xin
      
cm1 cm2 cmj cmn
Wm ..…... ……… am
xm1 xm2 xmj xmn
b1 b2 ……. bi ……… bn
 Mathematical model:
m n
(1) (min) f ( x11 , x12 ,..., xij ,..., xmn )  c11 x11  c12 x12  ...  cij xij  ...  cmn xmn   cij xij
i 1 j 1

 n
 ( xij ) xi1  xi 2  ...  xij  ...  xin  ai i  1, n
 j 1
(2)  (linear system with " m  n " inequations and " m  n " variables)
m
( x ) x  x  ...  x  ...  x  b j  1, m
 
i 1
ij 1j 2j ij mj j

(3) xij  0 () i  1, m , j  1, n

Note: If:
m n
a)  ai   bj (the offer it’s greater/smaller then the demand), we called nonequilibrate TP (NeTP)
i 1 j 1

and could’t be solved;

m n
b)  a  b
i 1
i
j 1
j (the offer it’s equal with the demand), we called equilibrate TP (ETP),

and the system (2) becomes an linear equations system. This ETP problem could be solved, and has
the next form:
m n
(1) (min) f ( x11 , x12 ,..., xij ,..., xmn )  c11 x11  c12 x12  ...  cij xij  ...  cmn xmn   cij xij
i 1 j 1

 n
 ( xij ) xi1  xi 2  ...  xij  ...  xin  ai i  1, n
 j 1
(2)  (linear system with " m  n " equations and " m  n " variables)
m
( x ) x  x  ...  x  ...  x  b j  1, m
 
i 1
ij 1j 2j ij mj j

(3) xij  0 () i  1, m ; j  1, n

Notes:
a) Always, an NeTP could be transformed in an ETP by added a new (fictive) warehouse (Wf) or
new (fictive) retail store (Sf) with cij  0 (transportations costs are equals with zero).

b) The optimal solution(s) of NeTP it will be obtein from optimal solution(s) of ETP attached, by
erased the new row or column which was attached;

Example:
“The Petromar Oil SRL company has 4 petrol stations in Copou (S1), Bucium (S2), Pacurari (S3) and
Tatarasi (S4) and each of them sell every week (in average): 15.000 l, 10.000 l, 25.000 l and 20.000 l of
gasoline. The company can to supplies with gasoline from 3 deposits (namely W1, W2 and W3), each of them
can provided weekly the next quantities: 20.000 l, 40.000 l, 35.000 l. The transportation costs for 1.000 l are
given in the next table:
 S1 S2 S3 S4
3 1 5 2
W1 20
x11 x12 x13 x14
6 4 1 3
W2 40
x21 x22 x23 x24
2 1 3 1
W3 35
x31 x32 x33 x34
15 10 25 20

3 4
Because, a
i 1
i  20  40  35  95 and b j 1
j  15  10  25  20  70 we have an NeTP (can’t be solve),

which will becomes an ETP if we added a new (fictive) store:

S1 S2 S3 S4 Sf

3 1 5 2 0
W1 20
x11 x12 x13 x14 x15
6 4 1 3 0
W2 40
x21 x22 x23 x24 x25
2 1 3 1 0
W3 35
x31 x32 x33 x34 x35
15 10 25 20 25

The mathematical ( of LPP type) model it is:

(1) (min) f ( x11 , x12 ,..., xij ,..., x35 )  3x11  x12  5 x13  2 x14  6 x21  4 x22  x23  3x33  2 x31  x32  3x33  x34  0 x15  0 x25  0 x35
 x11  x12  x13  x14  x15  20
 x  x  x  x  x  40
 21 22 23 24 25
 x31  x32  x33  x34  x35  35

 x11  x21  x31  15
(2) 
 x12  x22  x32  10
 x13  x23  x33  25

 x14  x24  x34  20
 x  x  x  25
 15 25 35
(3) xij  0 () i  1,3 ; j  1, 4

The linear system (2) have m=8 equations and n=15 variables (unknowns), so will have the
maximum Cnm  C158  6.435 basic solutions (one of them will be the optimal solution which we need to
found!).