Background The Transportation Problem (TP) is a detailed model in operations study with applications in logistics, supply chain management, and resource allocation. The classical IBFS methods including North-West Corner, Least Cost and Vogel’s Approximation have competitive computational efficiency, but they are very sensitive to the structure of the problem and usually lead to a solution that is far from the global optimum. Classic enhancement strategies like the Generalized Distribution (MODI) and Stepping-Stone (SS) approaches have low computational complexity but may fall into a local optimum quickly, which makes them ineffective in large-scale or unbalanced problems. Methods We propose the first generic hybrid algorithm, called Ester Hybrid Improvement for Transportation Problem (EHITP), which was developed with the aim of mitigating the shortcomings of traditional IBFS-based methods. To overcome the local minima problem, the proposed EHITP framework combines adaptive perturbation procedures and guided neighborhood search methodologies to broaden the solution space. Results Initial experiments on benchmark and synthetically created datasets show that EHITP obtains a much less total transportation cost relative to the classical IBFS and improved MODI/SS methods. These features lead to a more robust method, stable solutions over iterations, and convergence across a wider range of problem sizes and structures. Conclusions The findings show EHITP serves as a more reliable, scalable, and expense-effective solution to transportation issues. The balance this algorithm achieves between the quality of the solution it produces, and its computational efficiency makes it a potential candidate for real life applications in topics such as distribution chain and economic resource allocation.
