Dr. Ir. Jan Ploeger, successfully defended his dissertation about the Dutch history of the bike-train-bike combination since 1890 at the History Division in the Technology Innovation, Society Group at Eindhoven University of Technology in 2024. The English translation is expected to be published by Amsterdam University Press in 2025. Until recently, he was also program manager at the Transport and Environment Department of the province of Zuid-Holland, responsible for developing a program for the energy transition in public transport and road infrastructure.

He worked as Team Manager and traffic planning and safety consultant in the Transport and Road Research Division (AVV) of the Netherlands Ministry of Transport between 1990 and 2002, when he became an expert on cycling facilities and a leading member of the Masterplan Bicycle project group. He headed the first two editing teams of the classic Design Manual for a Bicycle-friendly Infrastructure (CROW 1993, revised in 2006); led 25 professionals in the field of integral mobility policy, model studies, social and economic research, and spatial planning before participating in writing the Dutch National Traffic and Transportation Plan as chief editor. Between 2002 and 2012, he participated in the Interprovincial Association (IPO) management team. He contributed to the financial decentralization of national powers and to broadening of provincial powers in regional planning and mobility. He was the first author of the Dutch Cycling Union’s visionary publication Fiets en trein op in lijn (1982) about the need of integrating cycling and train use.

His recent publications include:

Ploeger, Jan, and Ruth Oldenziel. “The Sociotechnical Roots of Smart Mobility: Bicycle Sharing since 1965.” Journal for Transport History 41, no. 2 (2020): 134-59

Ploeger, Jan and Oldenziel, Ruth. “Bicycle-Oriented Development: How the Dutch Railroads Shaped Urban Planning and Discovered Cyclists Along the Way, 1960-1990.” Urban History 50, no 2 (2022): 997-1017.