Intuitively the process will operate through iterative periods of competition in which competing sellers will adjust their services and charges to fit into a least-cost combination of transportation charges when meshed with the buyer's cost-savings information. The buyer (rental company) posts a cost function giving the costs it faces if the equipment is not moved. These costs are a sum of storage costs at sink locations and opportunity costs for missed rentals at source locations. The sellers (transportation providers) then participate in a continuous iterative bidding process that resembles a first-price procurement auction. Sellers determine and post asking prices for moving units, which depend on their costs of transportation along particular routes. A computer evaluates these offers in light of the buyer's cost function and announces a set of potential winners and losers. The process continues until no seller wishes to ask a lower price for its transportation services. At that point, the potential allocation becomes the actual allocation, and sellers collect on their transportation contracts