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Transport demand and private motor vehicle ownership (cars and motorcycles) are generally related to the socio-economic development, increasing urbanization, public policies and rising per capita income. Private motor vehicle ownership varies between countries and geographical regions. However, it tends to have some common patterns in its historical evolution. So that during the early stages of development, the rate of motorization increased mainly by acquisitions of PTWs (mopeds and motorcycles). As the economy grows, the increase in per capita income stimulates a shift from PTWs to cars, which are preferred for their safety, versatility, comfort and social status. The increasing use of cars contributes to raising travel costs (congestion, parking constraints, accidents, pollution), that coupled with public policies to discourage car use, tends to favor modal shifts from cars to public transport and in some regions also to PTWs. This study analyze the historical evolution of private motor vehicle ownership in Spain (cars and motorcycles), and identify the stage in which is the city of Barcelona, characterized by the high use of PTWs. The increase use of PTWs is a common phenomenon in some major European cities and suggests a continuous future growth in developed countries and congested urban areas, that is not in line with the assumptions of some models, which predict that in the long-run there will be a decrease in use of PTWs in areas with high income per capita levels.

SUMMARYThe main motivation of the authors of this article is to establish a rigorous definition of the potential capacity that a motor vehicle driver has to avoid a collision against a pedestrian. Henceforth we will call this capacity avoidability.To calculate the avoidability, it is necessary to analyze time, distance and itinerary, initial position of the pedestrian when exposed to the risk, initial speed; theoretical maximum speed developed by the vehicle and road limit speed; the driver's reaction time and the influence of the environment; and the interrelation of the initial positions of vehicle and pedestrian with respect to the transversal axis of the road.The definition, categorized by variables, of a driver's ability to avoid run over a pedestrian in an urban area has an evident usefulness: it allows knowing the influence of the initial speed of a vehicle as an isolated variable and the importance of the road limit speed in the ability to prevent an accident.

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