Savings heuristics initially build a solution where each customer is served on its own route.
Routes are then merged one by one according to some criteria. Savings algorithms vary by the
criterion used for merging routes (what saving is obtained by merging two routes) and by how
routes are merged. For the CVRP the most simple merge operation deletes an edge between the
depot and a customer from each of the two routes that is being merged and joins the route by
adding an edge between the two customers that are adjacent to only one edge. More advanced
merging procedures consider all the customers served by the two routes and solve a TSP (in case
of the CVRP) on these customers.