Patent ID: 7340405

Claim:
A computer implemented method for optimizing a schedule of legs employed by at least one service provider in transporting objects between geographic markets, the method comprising the steps of: a) identifying a set of itineraries for serving each market in a set of markets, each itinerary comprising one or more legs; b) generating a set of market plans for each of a plurality of markets, wherein the set of market plans for each market comprises a plurality of market plans with each market plan comprising a modified set of the itineraries for the market; c) individually determining the profitability of each market plan for each market following generation of new set of market plans for each of the plurality of markets; and d) selecting from the set of market plans for each market a subset optimizing overall profit of the schedule while accounting for resources of a service provider, wherein the subset of market plans is selected following a determination of the profitability of each market plan for each market, wherein at least one of the identifying, generating, determining and selecting steps is performed by a computer processor.