Laurens (''Luud'') Maria Hendrikus Schimmelpennink (born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, 27 May 1935) is a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

social inventor,

industrial designer Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advance of the manufactur ...

, entrepreneur and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. As of 2007 he is Managing Director of the Ytech Innovation Centre in

. Schimmelpennink first came into public view in the early 1960s through his association with the Dutch Provo

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

and the White Bicycle Plan. Since the mid-1960s Schimmelpennink has been active as an

and social innovator, with special focus on

sustainable transportation Sustainable transport refers to ways of transportation that are sustainability, sustainable in terms of their social and Environmental issue, environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used ...

concepts. His work aims to both reduce the number of conventional motor

cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

s for

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

and

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

reasons, and provide people with viable alternative means of getting around in the city.

White Bicycle Plan

Luud Schimmelpennink emerged on the Dutch social political scene as the main person behind the famous 1965 White Bicycle Plan in

, whereby he and colleagues collected several hundred bikes, painted them white, and left them around the city to be freely used. This initiative, called the White Bicycle Plan, originally existed as one in a series of White Plans proposed in the street magazine and youth movement Provo. The Dutch Provos were, by the standards of the times, a radical group that thought to provoke the establishment with playful demonstrations. On 22 February 1967 Schimmelpennink was elected to the Municipal Council of the City of

, but was unable to get the needed political support for his White Bicycle Plan. However, the basic model that Schimmelpennink and his colleagues created became an inspiration and model for

Community bicycle program A bicycle-sharing system, bike share program, public bicycle scheme, or public bike share (PBS) scheme, is a shared transport service where bicycles are available for shared use by individuals at low cost. The programmes themselves include bot ...

s which today are gaining serious momentum in a growing number of European cities, including

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

Lyons Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of th ...

and

Villeurbanne Villeurbanne (; frp, Velorbana) is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in eastern France. It is situated northeast of Lyon, with which it forms the heart of the second-largest metropolitan area in France after tha ...

Latest White Bicycle system design summary

Schimmelpennink’s updated White Bicycle system is supported by a patented smart card technology intended to counter misuse. The integrated access, parking and control systems discourages theft, and the bicycles are immediately identifiable due to their unusual design. Registered users can access the White Bicycles in a network of unmanned parking lots around the city. Such parking lots are equipped with a main console and have racks that hold up to ten bikes. When a club member inserts a card with an embedded microchip into the console, they are asked to identify their final destination and at that time book the use of a bicycle for thirty minutes. The central computer identifies the user and makes a reservation for them at a free parking slot near their indicated destination point. The cyclist then has half an hour to get from point A to point B and deposit the bike as programmed. This is the basic structure of the

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

s bicycle project and others that have come on line in the last few years. Schimmelpennink has freely contributed his knowledge to such initiatives.

Witkar

In the mid-1960s, Schimmelpennink started work on another concept, the Witkar. Designed as environmentally friendly, non-polluting,

safe A safe (also called a strongbox or coffer) is a secure lockable box used for securing valuable objects against theft or fire. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face being removable or hinged to form a door. The body and ...

, low speed city transport, the Witkar is a small three-wheeled electric shared car. The car is white, the name meaning White Car in Dutch. The initiative was one of the first working

carshare Carsharing or car sharing (AU, NZ, CA, TH, & US) or car clubs (UK) is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, often by the hour. It differs from traditional car rental in that the owners of the cars are often pri ...

projects in the world using specially developed technology and a formal carshare operational program. The Witkar was available on a subscription basis to certified members of an otherwise open public subscriber group. The Witkar cooperative opened to its users on 24 May 1968, and while it failed to get the political support needed to become a full scale, permanent part of the city’s

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...

landscape, it continued to offer service for its members until on October 27, 1986 when it was decided by the Witkar-association to dissolve itself.

Industrial design

As an

, Schimmelpennink's contributions include new

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...

designs, hardware and software systems to support vehicle sharing and

fleet management Fleet management is the management of: * Commercial motor vehicles such as cars, vans, trucks, specialist vehicles (such as mobile construction machinery), forklifts, and trailers * Private vehicles used for work purposes (the 'grey fleet') * Avi ...

, and the latest version of the White Bicycle concept - the

Smart-card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

supporte
Depo/White Bicycle system
with a new Witkar city

system presently under development.

Political positions

In 2002 and again in 2006, he was elected to the Municipal District Council of

Centrum, this time as a member of the Dutch Labor (Social Democrat) party PvdA. Schimmelpennink is currently working on a new Witkar-type project for Amsterdam as well as continuing to promote community cycles in Amsterdam and elsewhere.

External links