Abstract:

Each year, several students and faculty members from EU and other countries visit Greece and join our academic community in the context of Erasmus mobility projects for higher education students and staff. In addition to their main educational and training focus, intercultural understanding is listed among the key objectives of Erasmus mobility projects. Participants, apart from studying or working, are highly encouraged to cultivate their understanding and responsiveness to social, ethnic, linguistic, gender and cultural diversity. Travelling is an inherent human approach for meeting and gaining a deeper understanding of local culture and history. Especially in countries like Greece where higher education institutes are located all ever the country in areas of significant importance in terms of cultural heritage and popular culture, physical mobility, i.e., travelling, is essential for enhancing the outcomes and experiences of Erasmus participants.

Indeed, fellow colleagues and students who visit Greece in the context of Erasmus mobility projects try to travel around the country in groups by car, usually at rather limited budget and with little knowledge of the local road network (which has been under reconstruction and extension, recently). Motivated by their experiences as expressed in our discussions and taking into account the continuously increasing toll and fuel costs, we focused on suggesting technology-assisted solutions for enhancing the travelling experiences of participants in Erasmus mobility projects in Greece. Such solutions should be of zero (or at least very low) cost and easy-to-use on popular mobile devices without a strict requirement for continuous internet connectivity.

So, in this work, we present Tripy, a progressive web application (PWA) which shows on an interactive map toll and fuel stations on main highways of the greek mainland road network as well as such stations out of but close to those highways. To the best of our knowledge, existing similar applications neither offer information on both toll and fuel station simultaneously nor are progressive web applications.

Tripy is a lightweight, easy-to-use, responsive application designed to present fresh information. Moreover, as a progressive web application, Tripy can be used as a web site and mobile app on any device. Users can add the application to their home screen. Then, when launched from the home screen, Tripy becomes top-level, full-screen, and works also offline with no internet connection required. Due to its progressive-web nature, Tripy can be directly downloaded and used without the requirement for its prior upload to existing mobile app stores. Tripy is currently offered in English and Greek.

Tripy was developed using state-of-the art software tools including the cross-platform, open-source server environment Node.js together with the open source high-level programming language TypeScript, the Express.js standard server framework for Node.js as well as the open-source platform Angular and its Material user interface library. Tripy can run on desktop and android or iOS mobile devices.

Keywords:

Progressive web app (PWA), travel assistant, Erasmus mobility projects, international students and academic staff, embrasing cultural diversity.