<p>Most tunnels are often constructed in dense urban environments, which necessitates the tunnel excavation process in relatively compressed areas such as high-density cities. Typically, tunnels are situated close to each other, leading to increased interaction between parallel tunnels and causing greater ground settlement. In this paper, the assessments of the influence of excavating large tunnel sections on two types of ground settlement, which are the settlement around the tunnel and the surface settlement, have been monitored. In addition, the interaction characteristics of both twin parallel tunnels and triple parallel tunnels have been investigated. Three main methods have been used in order to evaluate the settlement, which are data monitoring, numerical simulation, and theoretical model. Moreover, a parametric study was conducted to examine the effect of spacing on settlement characteristics for closely spaced parallel tunnels conducted. Additionally, the effect of the excavation order on the settlement behavior has also been detected. However, after making a comparison between the numerical simulation and the field measurements, the results show good agreement for the settlement trend and value. Furthermore, the proposed analytical solution demonstrates lower sensitivity in settlement predictions compared to FEM analysis.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>