Open Journal of Optimization, 2016, 5, 22-30 Published Online March 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojop http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojop.2016.51003 How to cite this paper: Ahmed, M.M., Khan, A.R., Uddin, Md.S. and Ahmed, F. (2016) A New Approach to Solve Transporta- tion Problems. Open Journal of Optimization, 5, 22-30. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojop.2016.51003 A New Approach to Solve Transportation Problems Mollah Mesbahuddin Ahmed, Aminur Rahman Khan, Md. Sharif Uddin, Faruque Ahmed Department of Mathematics, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Received 24 November 2015; accepted 1 March 2016; published 4 March 2016 Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Finding an initial basic feasible solution is the prime requirement to obtain an optimal solution for the transportation problems. In this article, a new approach is proposed to find an initial basic feasible solution for the transportation problems. The method is also illustrated with numerical examples. Keywords Transportation Problem, Transportation Cost, Initial Basic Feasible Solution, Optimal Solution 1. Introduction Transportation problem is famous in operation research for its wide application in real life. This is a special kind of the network optimization problems in which goods are transported from a set of sources to a set of destina- tions subject to the supply and demand of the source and destination, respectively, such that the total cost of transportation is minimized. The basic transportation problem was originally developed by Hitchcock in 1941 [1]. Efficient methods for finding solution were developed, primarily by Dantzig in 1951 [2] and then by Charnes, Cooper and Henderson in 1953 [3]. Basically, the solution procedure for the transportation problem consists of the following phases: • Phase 1: Mathematical formulation of the transportation problem. • Phase 2: Finding an initial basic feasible solution. • Phase 3: Optimize the initial basic feasible solution which is obtained in Phase 2. In this paper, Phase 2 has been focused in order to obtain a better initial basic feasible solution for the trans- portation problems. This problem has been studied since long and is well known by Abdur Rashid et al. [4], Ami- nur Rahman Khan et al. [5]-[8], Hamdy A. T. [9], Kasana & Kumar [10], Kirca and Satir [11], M. Sharif Uddin et al. [12], Mathirajan, M. and Meenakshi [13], Md. Amirul Islam et al. [14] [15], Md. Ashraful Babu et al.