Transportation theory (mathematics)
Study of optimal transportation and allocation of resources / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Optimal transport?
Summarize this article for a 10 years old
In mathematics and economics, transportation theory or transport theory is a name given to the study of optimal transportation and allocation of resources. The problem was formalized by the French mathematician Gaspard Monge in 1781.[1]
In the 1920s A.N. Tolstoi was one of the first to study the transportation problem mathematically. In 1930, in the collection Transportation Planning Volume I for the National Commissariat of Transportation of the Soviet Union, he published a paper "Methods of Finding the Minimal Kilometrage in Cargo-transportation in space".[2][3]
Major advances were made in the field during World War II by the Soviet mathematician and economist Leonid Kantorovich.[4] Consequently, the problem as it is stated is sometimes known as the Monge–Kantorovich transportation problem.[5] The linear programming formulation of the transportation problem is also known as the Hitchcock–Koopmans transportation problem.[6]