Patent ID: 8078547

Claim:
A method for calculating and displaying premium freight costs, the method comprising: providing a first database containing shipment data comprising date, cost, weight, mode, source, origin and destination; providing a second database containing at least one optimality table comprising data regarding at least a first shipping mode and a second shipping mode; receiving, by a computer system, a selection of a time period of interest; selecting, by the computer system, all shipments occurring within the selected time period and indexing the shipments into a list; for each shipment in the list, evaluating by the computer system whether the shipment was delivered in the optimal mode, when a non-optimal mode was used, calculating, by the computer system, a mode premium freight cost; and when the mode premium freight cost is not negative, adding, by the computer system, the mode premium freight cost to a lane for the non-optimal mode; for each shipment in the list delivered by the optimal mode, evaluating by the computer system whether the shipment was delivered from an optimal source by comparing actual source to the optimal source, when a non-optimal source was used, calculating, by the computer system, a source premium freight cost, and when the source premium freight cost is not negative, adding, by the computer system, the source premium freight cost to a lane for the non-optimal source; and displaying each of the mode premium freight cost and the source premium freight cost by lane on a computer screen.