The special transportation algorithm was developed early on when hand computations
were the norm and the shortcuts were warranted. Today, we have powerful
computer codes that can solve a transportation model of any size as a regular Lp'4 Nevertheless,
the transportation algorithm, aside from its historical significance, does provide
insight into the use of the theoretical primal-dual relationships (introduced in
Section 4.2) to achieve a practical end result, that of improving hand computations. TIle
exercise is theoretically intriguing.