include solution sets which are excluded from the usual statement of the problem. Thus the solution of the transportation problem and particularly the solution of the solid or k-dimensional problem [9], might well be given in terms of the more general solutions resulting from the use of fractional as well as integral assignments. It is also very desirable that a method be applicable, with no more than slight modification, to various generalizations of the problem. Thus it is desirable that a method for solving the transportation problem be also essentially applicable to the k-dimensional transportation problem [9], to transportation problems with upper bounds [5, 368], to transportation problems with bounded partial sums of variables [15], to fixed charge transportation problems with constant fixed charges [22] and to problems having the same ci1 but with different values of ai and bj [3]. The attempt here is to provide a general method which gives general solutions to the general problems mentioned above which is operationally practical and generally more efficient than rival methods.