An Improved Starting Algorithm for the Ford-Fulkerson Approach to the Transportation Problem

This paper presents an algorithm for yielding an improved initial dual solution of the transportation problem when the network flow algorithm of Ford and Fulkerson is used. (1) The algorithm is described. (2) It is demonstrated by means of a numerical example. (3) Computational experience is reported. 400 medium-sized (30 × 80; 50 × 60; 50 × 80) test problems with three different kinds of distance matrices and two different kinds of shipment quantity vectors were evaluated. The average improvement over the usual method was about 30%.