Brought up in Bradford, Peter Waller grew up as the city’s trolleybus network gradually declined.
 Following a history degree at Oxford, he took a master’s degree in industrial archaeology at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum’s Institute of Industrial Archaeology (part of the University of Birmingham).

In 1986, Peter commenced a career in publishing, working for a number of years as Ian Allan Ltd’s Publisher (Books), where he oversaw the commissioning and publication of a wide range of titles. The first book that he wrote was British and Irish Tramway Systems since 1945 in 1992. Since then he has written a number of books on transport subjects; these include the critically acclaimed German Trams in Colour 1955-1975, which was published in both English and German during 2017.

He first visited Hong Kong in 1992 when his mother was working there for the British Council and took the opportunity during his visits to travel extensively around both Hong Kong Island and the New Territories. Moving to Shropshire in 2007, Peter is now a full-time author and editor. He is also a director and secretary of the Online Transport Archive and a committee member of the National Railway Heritage Awards.