When the owner of the rental units is also the owner of the least-cost transportation, the back-haul problem is merely one of optimization by a single agent. However, if the owner of the rental units must contract for the transportation from a number of providers, the owner must try to attain a least-cost outcome. Classically, analysts consider the problem from the point of view of uncertainties and the complexities of scheduling. They consider the problem from the point of view of a single decision maker who formulates the problem on the best information available and makes a decision. By contrast we outline a process for making such decisions whose heart is a new, decentralized, smart auction process. Here the problem includes the complexity of asymmetric information in that only the transportation providers know the costs