The global shipping model is a complicated nexus of highly-functional international connections. Shipping ports terminate strands of the network or act as junctions between connections, sending massive cranes to deliver ship-bound containers into handling complexes and managing the large-scale process with a logistics system that then relays the freight to its destination. The southern seas reigns over the lower half of the image depicted by our network metaphor, with cargo vessels reaching out to touch China and Australia, India and Africa, reaching up in turn to bridge the shipping lanes of Europe and the Americas. The reefer, refrigerated container, trade routes blanket all of these locations, delivering perishable content to coastal ports.
Melbourne is the port being used in our topic today, a southern metropolis that's the last stop before Tasmania and the frosty realms of the Antarctic. Melbourne is the gateway to the state of Victoria, Australia, and container handling here is likely to be key in the management of all newly arrived frozen cargo. We're talking about everything from fresh vegetables, just in from Europe, to the sensitive pharmaceutical ingredients being researched at a nearby medical university. This time-sensitive and biology-dependent cycle is essential in creating a state of globalized commerce, and Australia is a card-carrying member of this world club.
There are networks within networks, of course, and this is the science that reinforces the logistics used in reefer container storage. The main network, the shipment of huge quantities of freight on massive cargo ships, translates downward to a smaller but no less important mesh of storage facilities and cranes. The port of Melbourne is responsible for the berthing of the ships, the allocation of 34 commercial anchorage points, at which point paperwork is delivered to the port authority to confirm the content of the containers. A highly specialized software suite chatters to servers on board the ship and to the port of departure where the cargo originally departed from, acting as an indexing service that polls reefer content. In fact, this system is common among all containers, but the management of refrigerated containment requires a greater portion of processing power, manual and computerized, to evaluate the condition of perishable cargo.
Reefer storage facilities exist around the city of Melbourne, with each one taking the role of a storage area, complete with power outlets. They also convert the primary network into a secondary form, off-loading containers and reloading them on trucks and rail cars for distribution across Victoria and beyond. There's one other point worthy of consideration in our analysis of container management in Melbourne, and that's the realization that freight goes to all four points of the compass, a fact that alludes to the presence of distant Tasmania and this states growing infrastructure.
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