EcoRasmus

The Problem

Erasmus+ encourages students to travel with lower-emission transport, but in practice that is hard to do:

• Students have to search several providers and websites to piece together a train and bus journey across Europe.
• They are often unsure whether a route qualifies for Green Travel, or whether they need approval before travelling.
• Tickets, receipts and boarding passes end up scattered across inboxes, apps and paper.
• Universities receive documents in inconsistent formats and review them by hand.

Travel planning, document management and sharing experiences usually happen on separate platforms. EcoRasmus brings them together in one place and makes the sustainable choice the easy one.

How It Works

1. The student signs up with their university email address.
2. They search and compare routes.
3. They pick a route and press “Send to university for approval”.
4. A university officer approves the route, requests changes or rejects it.
5. After approval, the student books the journey and the tickets are saved.
6. The student adds boarding passes and receipts (including fuel receipts for car trips).
7. After the journey, they submit the full documentation for reimbursement.

Features

For students

• Multimodal journey search across Europe (train, bus and combinations) with real-time availability through the Tictactrip API.
• Journeys compared side by side by distance, duration, price and estimated CO₂ emissions.
• Routes that are likely to qualify are marked “Likely eligible for Green Travel”.
• Ticket booking links provided by the transport operators.
• Secure storage for tickets, boarding passes and receipts.
• A PDF travel evidence report with journey details, emissions estimates and supporting documents.

For universities

• A portal with an inbox of submissions.
• Review, approve, request changes or reject.
• Download the submitted documents in one consistent format.

Community

• Posts, comments, likes and saves.
• Flairs for Experience, Travel story, Event, Question and Route tip, plus city and university tags.
• Reporting of inappropriate content or users.

Administration

• Administrators manage user accounts and moderate community content.

What Makes It Different

Route planners like Google Maps, Rome2Rio and Omio compare routes. EcoRasmus adds what they don’t: eligibility marking against the Green Travel criteria, a built-in university approval workflow, organised proof of travel for reimbursement, and a community of fellow Erasmus students.

What It Aims For

• Environmental: more students choosing lower-emission journeys, with CO₂ savings measured per trip.
• Social: better access to information and peer support for students.
• Institutional: less paperwork and more consistent documentation for universities.
• Policy: support for the Erasmus+ goal of greener mobility.