The primary objectives of this paper are: (1) to present a simplified 'double-pricing' method for solving the capacitated transportation problem by Lemke's dual method which streamlines computer implementation; (2) to give a new and efficient method for obtaining a dual feasible starting basis; (3) to give the results of computational comparison of a code based on these developments with two widely used out-of-kilter production codes. In addition, these codes are compared against a state of the art large scale LP code, OPHELIE/LP. The study shows that the improved dual transportation algorithm is faster than the out-of-kilter codes for problems of up to 150 x 150 (origins x destinations), but tends to fall behind thereafter. The best algorithms was found to be at least 20 times faster than OPHELIE.