# 14. Optimal Transport¶

## 14.1. Overview¶

The transportation or optimal transport problem is interesting both because of its many applications and its important role in the history of economic theory.

In this lecture, we describe the problem, tell how linear programming is a key tool for solving it, then provide some examples.

We will provide other applications in followup lectures.

The optimal transport problem was studied in early work about linear programming, as summarized for example by [DSS58]. A modern reference about applications in economics is [Gal16].

We shall solve our problems first by using the scipy function linprog and then the quantecon program linprog_simplex.

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Requirement already satisfied, skipping upgrade: numpy in /usr/share/miniconda3/envs/quantecon/lib/python3.8/site-packages (from quantecon) (1.19.2)

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import numpy as np
from scipy.optimize import linprog
from quantecon.optimize import linprog_simplex


## 14.2. The Linear Programming Problem¶

Suppose that $$m$$ factories produce goods that must be sent to $$n$$ locations.

Let

• $$x_{ij}$$ denote the quantity shipped from factory $$i$$ to location $$j$$

• $$c_{ij}$$ denote the cost of shipping one unit from factory $$i$$ to location $$j$$

• $$p_i$$ denote the capacity of factory $$i$$ and $$q_j$$ denote the amount required at location $$j$$.

• $$i = 1, 2, \dots, m$$ and $$j = 1, 2, \dots, n$$.

A planner wants to minimize total transportation costs subject to the following constraints:

• The amount shipped from each factory must equal its capacity.

• The amount shipped to each location must equal the quantity required there.

The planner’s problem can be expressed as the following constrained minimization problem:

(14.1)\begin{split} \begin{aligned} \min_{x_{ij}} \ & \sum_{i=1}^m \sum_{j=1}^n c_{ij} x_{ij} \\ \mbox{subject to } \ & \sum_{j=1}^n x_{ij} = p_i, & i = 1, 2, \dots, m \\ & \sum_{i=1}^m x_{ij} = q_j, & j = 1, 2, \dots, n \\ & x_{ij} \ge 0 \\ \end{aligned} \end{split}

This is an optimal transport problem with

• $$mn$$ decision variables, namely, the entries $$x_{ij}$$ and

• $$m+n$$ constraints.

Summing the $$q_j$$’s across all $$j$$’s and the $$p_i$$’s across all $$i$$’s indicates that the total capacity of all the factories equals total requirements at all locations:

(14.2)$\sum_{j=1}^n q_j = \sum_{j=1}^n \sum_{i=1}^m x_{ij} = \sum_{i=1}^m \sum_{j=1}^n x_{ij} = \sum_{i=1}^m p_i$

The presence of the restrictions in (14.2) will be the source of one redundancy in the complete set of restrictions that we describe below.

### 14.2.1. Vectorizing a Matrix of Decision Variables¶

A matrix of decision variables $$x_{ij}$$ appears in problem (14.1).

The Scipy function linprog expects to see a vector of decision variables.

This situation impels us to want to rewrite our problem in terms of a vector of decision variables.

Let

• $$X, C$$ be $$m \times n$$ matrices with entries $$x_{ij}, c_{ij}$$,

• $$p$$ be $$m$$-dimensional vector with entries $$p_i$$,

• $$q$$ be $$n$$-dimensional vector with entries $$q_j$$.

Where $$\mathbf{1}_n$$ denotes $$n$$-dimensional column vector $$(1, 1, \dots, 1)'$$, our problem can now be expressed compactly as:

\begin{split} \begin{aligned} \min_{X} \ & \operatorname{tr} (C' X) \\ \mbox{subject to } \ & X \ \mathbf{1}_n = p \\ & X' \ \mathbf{1}_m = q \\ & X \ge 0 \\ \end{aligned} \end{split}

We can convert the matrix $$X$$ into a vector by stacking all of its columns into a column vector.

Doing this is called vectorization, an operation that we denote $$\operatorname{vec}(X)$$.

Similarly, we convert the matrix $$C$$ into an $$mn$$-dimensional vector $$\operatorname{vec}(C)$$.

The objective function can be expressed as the inner product between $$\operatorname{vec}(C)$$ and $$\operatorname{vec}(X)$$:

$\operatorname{vec}(C)' \cdot \operatorname{vec}(X).$

To express the constraints in terms of $$\operatorname{vec}(X)$$, we use a Kronecker product denoted by $$\otimes$$ and defined as follows.

Suppose $$A$$ is an $$m \times s$$ matrix with entries $$(a_{ij})$$ and that $$B$$ is an $$n \times t$$ matrix.

A Kronecker product of $$A$$ and $$B$$ is defined by

$\begin{split} A \otimes B = \begin{bmatrix} a_{11}B & a_{12}B & \dots & a_{1s}B \\ a_{21}B & a_{22}B & \dots & a_{2s}B \\ & & \vdots & \\ a_{m1}B & a_{m2}B & \dots & a_{ms}B \\ \end{bmatrix}. \end{split}$

$$A \otimes B$$ is an $$mn \times st$$ matrix.

It has the property that for any $$m \times n$$ matrix $$X$$

(14.3)$\operatorname{vec}(A'XB) = (B' \otimes A') \operatorname{vec}(X).$

We can now express our constraints in terms of $$\operatorname{vec}(X)$$.

Let $$A = \mathbf{I}_m', B = \mathbf{1}_n$$.

By equation (14.3)

$X \ \mathbf{1}_n = \operatorname{vec}(X \ \mathbf{1}_n) = \operatorname{vec}(\mathbf{I}_m X \ \mathbf{1}_n) = (\mathbf{1}_n' \otimes \mathbf{I}_m) \operatorname{vec}(X).$

where $$\mathbf{I}_m$$ denotes the $$m \times m$$ identity matrix.

Constraint $$X \ \mathbf{1}_n = p$$ can now be written as:

$(\mathbf{1}_n' \otimes \mathbf{I}_m) \operatorname{vec}(X) = p.$

Similarly, the constraint $$X' \ \mathbf{1}_m = q$$ can be rewriten as:

$(\mathbf{I}_n \otimes \mathbf{1}_m') \operatorname{vec}(X) = q.$

Our problem can now be expressed in terms of an $$mn$$-dimensional vector of decision variables:

(14.4)\begin{split} \begin{aligned} \min_{z} \ & \operatorname{vec}(C)' z \\ \mbox{subject to } \ & A z = b \\ & z \ge 0 \\ \end{aligned} \end{split}

where

$\begin{split} A = \begin{bmatrix} \mathbf{1}_n' \otimes \mathbf{I}_m \\ \mathbf{I}_n \otimes \mathbf{1}_m' \\ \end{bmatrix}, b = \begin{bmatrix} p \\ q \\ \end{bmatrix} \end{split}$

where $$z = \operatorname{vec}(X)$$.

Example:

We now provide an example that takes the form (14.4) that we’ll solve by deploying the function linprog.

The table below provides numbers for the requirements vector $$q$$, the capacity vector $$p$$, and entries $$c_{ij}$$ of the cost-of-shipping matrix $$C$$.

Factory
Requirement
Location 1 2 3
1 10 20 30 25
2 15 40 35 115
3 20 15 40 60
4 20 30 55 30
5 40 30 25 70
Capacity 50 100 150 300

The numbers in the above table tell us to construct the following objects:

$\begin{split} m = 3, n = 5, \\ p = (50,100,150)', q = (25,115,60,30,70)', \\ C = \begin{bmatrix} 10 &15 &20 &20 &40 \\ 20 &40 &15 &30 &30 \\ 30 &35 &40 &55 &25 \\ \end{bmatrix}. \end{split}$

Let’s write Python code that sets up the problem and solves it.

# Define parameters
m = 3
n = 5

p = np.array([50, 100, 150])
q = np.array([25, 115, 60, 30, 70])

C = np.array([[10, 15, 20, 20, 40],
[20, 40, 15, 30, 30],
[30, 35, 40, 55, 25]])

# Vectorize matrix C
C_vec = C.reshape((m*n, 1), order='F')

# Construct matrix A by Kronecker product
A1 = np.kron(np.ones((1, n)), np.identity(m))
A2 = np.kron(np.identity(n), np.ones((1, m)))
A = np.vstack([A1, A2])

# Construct vector b
b = np.hstack([p, q])

# Solve the primal problem
res = linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A, b_eq=b, method='Revised simplex')

# Print results
print("message:", res.message)
print("nit:", res.nit)
print("fun:", res.fun)
print("z:", res.x)
print("X:", res.x.reshape((m,n), order='F'))

message: Optimization terminated successfully.
nit: 12
fun: 7225.0
z: [15. 10.  0. 35.  0. 80.  0. 60.  0.  0. 30.  0.  0.  0. 70.]
X: [[15. 35.  0.  0.  0.]
[10.  0. 60. 30.  0.]
[ 0. 80.  0.  0. 70.]]

<ipython-input-3-ee1aac536182>:24: OptimizeWarning: A_eq does not appear to be of full row rank. To improve performance, check the problem formulation for redundant equality constraints.
res = linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A, b_eq=b, method='Revised simplex')

C.reshape((m*n, 1), order='F')

array([[10],
[20],
[30],
[15],
[40],
[35],
[20],
[15],
[40],
[20],
[30],
[55],
[40],
[30],
[25]])

C.reshape((m*n, 1), order='C')

array([[10],
[15],
[20],
[20],
[40],
[20],
[40],
[15],
[30],
[30],
[30],
[35],
[40],
[55],
[25]])

C.reshape((m*n, 1), order='A')

array([[10],
[15],
[20],
[20],
[40],
[20],
[40],
[15],
[30],
[30],
[30],
[35],
[40],
[55],
[25]])


Interpreting the warning:

The above warning message from scipy pointing out that A is not full rank.

This indicates that the problem has been set up to include one or more redundant constraints.

Here, the source of the redundancy is that the set of restrictions (14.2).

Let’s explore this further by printing out $$A$$ and staring at it.

A

array([[1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0.],
[0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0.],
[0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1.],
[1., 1., 1., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 1., 1., 1., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 1., 1., 1., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 1., 1., 1., 0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 1., 1., 1.]])


The singularity of $$A$$ reflects that the first three constraints and the last five constraints both require that “total requirements equal total capacities” expressed in (14.2).

One equality constraint here is redundant.

Below we drop one of the equality constraints, and use only 7 of them.

After doing this, we attain the same minimized cost.

However, we find a different transportation plan.

Though it is a different plan, it attains the same cost!

linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[:-1], b_eq=b[:-1], method='Revised simplex')

     con: array([0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.])
fun: 7225.0
message: 'Optimization terminated successfully.'
nit: 13
slack: array([], dtype=float64)
status: 0
success: True
x: array([ 0., 25.,  0., 35.,  0., 80.,  0., 60.,  0., 15., 15.,  0.,  0.,
0., 70.])

%timeit linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[:-1], b_eq=b[:-1], method='Revised simplex')

3.47 ms ± 9 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

%timeit linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A, b_eq=b, method='Revised simplex')

<magic-timeit>:1: OptimizeWarning: A_eq does not appear to be of full row rank. To improve performance, check the problem formulation for redundant equality constraints.

3.94 ms ± 177 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)


Evidently, it is slightly quicker to work with the system that removed a redundant constraint.

Let’s drill down and do some more calculations to help us understand whether or not our finding two different optimal transport plans reflects our having dropped a redundant equality constraint.

Hint

It will turn out that dropping a redundant equality isn’t really what mattered.

To verify our hint, we shall simply use all of the original equality constraints (including a redundant one), but we’ll just shuffle the order of the constraints.

arr = np.arange(m+n)

sol_found = []
cost = []

# simulate 1000 times
for i in range(1000):

np.random.shuffle(arr)
res_shuffle = linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[arr], b_eq=b[arr], method='Revised simplex')

# if find a new solution
sol = tuple(res_shuffle.x)
if sol not in sol_found:
sol_found.append(sol)
cost.append(res_shuffle.fun)

<ipython-input-12-4ae183291d9d>:8: OptimizeWarning: A_eq does not appear to be of full row rank. To improve performance, check the problem formulation for redundant equality constraints.
res_shuffle = linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[arr], b_eq=b[arr], method='Revised simplex')

for i in range(len(sol_found)):
print(f"transportation plan {i}: ", sol_found[i])
print(f"     minimized cost {i}: ", cost[i])

transportation plan 0:  (15.0, 10.0, 0.0, 35.0, 0.0, 80.0, 0.0, 60.0, 0.0, 0.0, 30.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 70.0)
minimized cost 0:  7225.0
transportation plan 1:  (0.0, 25.0, 0.0, 35.0, 0.0, 80.0, 0.0, 60.0, 0.0, 15.0, 15.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 70.0)
minimized cost 1:  7225.0


Ah hah! As you can see, putting constraints in different orders in this case uncovers two optimal transportation plans that achieve the same minimized cost.

These are the same two plans computed early.

Next, we show that leaving out the first constraint “accidentally” leads to the initial plan that we computed.

linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[1:], b_eq=b[1:], method='Revised simplex')

     con: array([0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0., 0.])
fun: 7225.0
message: 'Optimization terminated successfully.'
nit: 12
slack: array([], dtype=float64)
status: 0
success: True
x: array([15., 10.,  0., 35.,  0., 80.,  0., 60.,  0.,  0., 30.,  0.,  0.,
0., 70.])


Let’s compare this transport plan with

res.x

array([15., 10.,  0., 35.,  0., 80.,  0., 60.,  0.,  0., 30.,  0.,  0.,
0., 70.])


Here the matrix $$X$$ contains entries $$x_{ij}$$ that tell amounts shipped from factor $$i = 1, 2, 3$$ to location $$j=1,2, \ldots, 5$$.

The vector $$z$$ evidently equals $$\operatorname{vec}(X)$$.

The minimized cost from the optimal transport plan is given by the $$fun$$ variable.

We can also solve an optimal transportation problem using a powerful tool from quantecon, namely,quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex.

It uses the same simplex algorithm as scipy.optimize.linprog, but the program is accelerated by using numba.

As you will see very soon, by using scipy.optimize.linprog the time required to solve an optimal transportation problem can be reduced significantly.

# construct matrices/vectors for linprog_simplex
c = C.flatten()

# Equality constraints
A_eq = np.zeros((m+n, m*n))
for i in range(m):
for j in range(n):
A_eq[i, i*n+j] = 1
A_eq[m+j, i*n+j] = 1

b_eq = np.hstack([p, q])


Since quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex does maximization instead of minimization, we need to put a negative sign before vector c.

res_qe = linprog_simplex(-c, A_eq=A_eq, b_eq=b_eq)


Since the two LP solvers use the same simplex algorithm, we expect to get exactly the same solutions

res_qe.x.reshape((m, n), order='C')

array([[15., 35.,  0.,  0.,  0.],
[10.,  0., 60., 30.,  0.],
[ 0., 80.,  0.,  0., 70.]])

res.x.reshape((m, n), order='F')

array([[15., 35.,  0.,  0.,  0.],
[10.,  0., 60., 30.,  0.],
[ 0., 80.,  0.,  0., 70.]])


Let’s do a speed comparison between scipy.optimize.linprog and quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex.

# scipy.optimize.linprog
%timeit res = linprog(C_vec, A_eq=A[:-1, :], b_eq=b[:-1], method='Revised simplex')

3.44 ms ± 21 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

# quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex
%timeit out = linprog_simplex(-c, A_eq=A_eq, b_eq=b_eq)

22.9 µs ± 134 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)


As you can see, the quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex is almost 200 times faster.

## 14.3. The Dual Problem¶

Let $$u, v$$ denotes vectors of dual decision variables with entries $$(u_i), (v_j)$$.

The dual to minimization problem (14.1) is the maximization problem:

(14.5)\begin{split} \begin{aligned} \max_{u_i, v_j} \ & \sum_{i=1}^m p_i u_i + \sum_{j=1}^n q_j v_j \\ \mbox{subject to } \ & u_i + v_j \le c_{ij}, \ i = 1, 2, \dots, m;\ j = 1, 2, \dots, n \\ \end{aligned} \end{split}

The dual problem is also a linear programming problem.

It has $$m+n$$ dual variables and $$mn$$ constraints.

Vectors $$u$$ and $$v$$ of values are attached to the first and the second sets of primal constraits, respectively.

Thus, $$u$$ is attached to the constraints

• $$(\mathbf{1}_n' \otimes \mathbf{I}_m) \operatorname{vec}(X) = p$$

and $$v$$ is attached to constraints

• $$(\mathbf{I}_n \otimes \mathbf{1}_m') \operatorname{vec}(X) = q.$$

Components of the vectors $$u$$ and $$v$$ of values are shadow prices of the quantities appearing on the right sides of those constraints.

We can write the dual problem as

(14.6)\begin{split} \begin{aligned} \max_{u_i, v_j} \ & p u + q v \\ \mbox{subject to } \ & A' \begin{bmatrix} u \\ v \\ \end{bmatrix} = \operatorname{vec}(C) \\ \end{aligned} \end{split}

For the same numerical example described above, let’s solve the dual problem.

# Solve the dual problem
res_dual = linprog(-b, A_ub=A.T, b_ub=C_vec,
bounds=[(None, None)]*(m+n), method='Revised simplex')

#Print results
print("message:", res_dual.message)
print("nit:", res_dual.nit)
print("fun:", res_dual.fun)
print("u:", res_dual.x[:m])
print("v:", res_dual.x[-n:])

message: Optimization terminated successfully.
nit: 7
fun: -7225.0
u: [ 5. 15. 25.]
v: [ 5. 10.  0. 15.  0.]


We can also solve the dual problem using quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex.

res_dual_qe = linprog_simplex(b_eq, A_ub=A_eq.T, b_ub=c)


And the shadow prices computed by the two programs are identical.

res_dual_qe.x

array([ 5., 15., 25.,  5., 10.,  0., 15.,  0.])

res_dual.x

array([ 5., 15., 25.,  5., 10.,  0., 15.,  0.])


We can compare computational times from using our two tools.

%timeit linprog(-b, A_ub=A.T, b_ub=C_vec, bounds=[(None, None)]*(m+n), method='Revised simplex')

2.64 ms ± 35.8 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)

%timeit linprog_simplex(b_eq, A_ub=A_eq.T, b_ub=c)

168 µs ± 591 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)


quantecon.optimize.linprog_simplex solves the dual problem 10 times faster.

Just for completeness, let’s solve the dual problems with nonsingular $$A$$ matrices that we create by dropping a redundant equality constraint.

Try first leaving out the first constraint:

linprog(-b[1:], A_ub=A[1:].T, b_ub=C_vec,
bounds=[(None, None)]*(m+n-1), method='Revised simplex')

     con: array([], dtype=float64)
fun: -7225.0
message: 'Optimization terminated successfully.'
nit: 7
slack: array([ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0., 15.,  0., 15.,  0., 15.,  0.,  0., 15., 35.,
15.,  0.])
status: 0
success: True
x: array([10., 20., 10., 15.,  5., 20.,  5.])


Not let’s instead leave out the last constraint:

linprog(-b[:-1], A_ub=A[:-1].T, b_ub=C_vec,
bounds=[(None, None)]*(m+n-1), method='Revised simplex')

     con: array([], dtype=float64)
fun: -7225.0
message: 'Optimization terminated successfully.'
nit: 11
slack: array([ 0.,  0.,  0.,  0., 15.,  0., 15.,  0., 15.,  0.,  0., 15., 35.,
15.,  0.])
status: 0
success: True
x: array([ 5., 15., 25.,  5., 10.,  0., 15.])


### 14.3.1. Interpretation of dual problem¶

By strong duality, we know that:

$\sum_{i=1}^m \sum_{j=1}^n c_{ij} x_{ij} = \sum_{i=1}^m p_i u_i + \sum_{j=1}^n q_j v_j$

One unit more capacity in factory $$i$$, i.e. $$p_i$$, results in $$u_i$$ more transportation costs.

Thus, $$u_i$$ describes the cost of shipping one unit from factory $$i$$.

Call this the ship-out cost of one unit shipped from factory $$i$$.

Similarly, $$v_j$$ is the cost of shipping one unit to location $$j$$.

Call this the ship-in cost of one unit to location $$j$$.

Strong duality implies that total transprotation costs equals total ship-out costs plus total ship-in costs.

It is reasonable that, for one unit of a product, ship-out cost $$u_i$$ plus ship-in cost $$v_j$$ should equal transportation cost $$c_{ij}$$.

This equality is assured by complementary slackness conditions that state that whenever $$x_{ij} > 0$$, meaning that there are positive shipments from factory $$i$$ to location $$j$$, it must be true that $$u_i + v_j = c_{ij}$$.