1st Student's Major
Computer Information Science
1st Student's College
Science, Engineering and Technology
Students' Professional Biography
Tapojit Kumar is a senior year student in the Computer and Information Sciences department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN. His areas of interest include Combinatorial Optimization, Parallel Processing, Network Security and Algorithm Analysis.
Mentor's Name
Susan Schilling
Mentor's Email Address
susan.schilling@mnsu.edu
Mentor's Department
Computer Information Science
Mentor's College
Science, Engineering and Technology
Abstract
The Transportation Problem is a classic Operations Research problem where the objective is to determine the schedule for transporting goods from source to destination in a way that minimizes the shipping cost while satisfying supply and demand constraints. Although it can be solved as a Linear Programming problem, other methods exist. Linear Programming makes use of the Simplex Method, an algorithm invented to solve a linear program by progressing from one extreme point of the feasible polyhedron to an adjacent one. The algorithm contains tactics like pricing and pivoting. For a Transportation Problem, a simplified version of the regular Simplex Method can be used, known as the Transportation Simplex Method. This paper will discuss the functionality of both of these algorithms, and compare their run-time and optimized values with a heuristic method called the Genetic Algorithm. Genetic Algorithms, pioneered by John Holland, are algorithms that use mechanisms similar to those of natural evolution to encourage the survival of the best intermediate solutions. The objective of the study was to find out how these algorithms behave in terms of accuracy and speed when a large-scale problem is being solved.
Recommended Citation
Kumar, Tapojit
(2004)
"Comparison of Optimization Techniques in Large Scale Transportation Problems,"
Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato: Vol. 4, Article 10.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56816/2378-6949.1162
Available at:
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/jur/vol4/iss1/10
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License