A branch-and-price approach to the feeder network design problem.

•The problem of selecting customers and designing routes on a container shipping feeder network is proposed.•The model takes into account many real-life characteristics and constraints.•The model is solved with a branch-and-price algorithm.•Realistic instances are produced, starting from publicly-available benchmark instances.•Computational results and a scenario analysis are presented, to provide insights on desirable features of optimal routes.