Application of Classical Transportation Methods for Solving Fuzzy Transportation Problems

There are several methods, in the literature, for finding a fuzzy optimal solution to fully fuzzy transportation problems (transportation problems in which all the parameters are represented by fuzzy numbers). In this study, the shortcomings of some existing methods are pointed out, and to overcome these shortcomings, two new methods (based on fuzzy linear programming formulation and classical transportation methods) are proposed to find a fuzzy optimal solution to fuzzy transportation problems with a new representation of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. The advantages of the proposed methods over existing methods are discussed. Also, it is shown that it is better to use the proposed representation of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers instead of the existing representation of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers for finding a fuzzy optimal solution to fuzzy transportation problems. To illustrate the proposed methods, a fuzzy transportation problem (FTP) is solved using the proposed methods and the obtained results are discussed. The proposed methods are easy to understand and to apply for finding a fuzzy optimal solution to fuzzy transportation problems occurring in real-life situations.