Flourishing economy, rapid industrialization and increasing trend of motorization have been shaping societies in the developing countries like India in an unprecedented manner.Infrastructure backlog amid such rapid growth in all imaginable directions has heavily exacerbated the urban transport crisis in these countries by alarming increase in vehicular travel demand, road fatalities, and environmental pollution. To address urban transport challenges, the necessary development and implementation of effective transport planning and policies have generally lagged in the developing countries compared to that seen in the developed countries due to several constraints including resource constraints, knowledge constraints, institutional constraints and so on. However, in the recent past, with the rapid development seen by several emerging economies and the explosive growth in transportation infrastructure investment, there is a growing interest in the development and implementati on of advanced travel demand modeling systems in developing countries. But lack of necessary research and exploration of travel behavior in a developing country context has left very limited knowledge for us to understand the extent of applicability of these advanced theories and methodologies in a different socio-cultural perspective. Assessing the practical relevance of the subject, this research adopts a comprehensive approach to explore the activity engagement pattern and time use behavior from a developing country standpoint. To accomplish this goal, a series of empirical and analytical studies are performed on a household travel survey data set available from Thane Metropolitan Area in India. The study also introduces new concepts and facilitates enhancements of existing modeling methodologies in the field of travel behavior and time use research. The study results provide very insightful findings and plausible interpretations consistent with a developing country perspective reco gnizing a wide spectrum of differences and similarities in activity patterns and time use behavior between a developed and a developing country. Specified model structures are meaningfully able to incorporate various socio-cultural and institutional constraints and reflected sensitivity to the behavioral variability between the contexts suggesting that advanced analytical techniques may be satisfactorily applied on the data set from developing countries which may contribute important ingredients in the development of advanced activity-based model system in the countries like India.

Vid kalkylering inför en tunneldrivning finns det vissa svårigheter med att bestämma hur lång tid arbetet tar och framför allt vid uppstarten av produktionen. Det kan leda till att anbudsofferter blir felberäknade med avseende på både tiden och kostnaden. Vid en felberäkning av hur mycket tid ett projekt kan tänkas behöva kan det i längden ge högre kostnader och därmed lägre intäkter. För att förhindra sådana fallgropar är ett steg att identifiera de problem som kan uppstå under produktionen och förhindra dem. Mätningar har därför utförts under uppstarten av ett tunneldrivningsprojekt i Norsborg. Även om mätningarna utförs på ett specifikt projekt är förhoppningen att det även ska kunna användas vid andra tunneldrivningsprojekt. Många resultat och slutsatser kan också tillämpas vid andra tunneldrivningsprojekt och kanske även vid helt andra byggprojekt. Mätningarna har skett ute på projektet och har innefattat tidtagning på de olika arbetsmoment som har skett under uppstarten och inom varje cykel. En cykel omfattar alla de arbeten som sker vid sprängning av en hel stuff, det vill säga från det att borrning påbörjas inför en laddning av salva till dess att salvan sprängts av och allt berg har lastats och rensats bort från stuffen. Problem som har uppstått under tiden och anledningen till dem har även noterats. Kvantiteter på hur många borrhål som har borrats och hur långa dessa är, hur mycket sprängmedel som har använts och hur många hål som har laddats har dokumenterats för att kunna ta fram kapaciteten under de olika momenten. Uppstarten redovisas per vecka med cirkeldiagram som visar hur mycket av den totala arbetstiden som har gått åt för varje moment. Här redovisas också hur mycket stopp som har skett för respektive vecka. Diagrammen ger en bra överblick över vad som har skett under uppstarten och vilka moment som har varit mer tidskrävande än andra.   Av diagrammen vid uppstarten kan utläsas att många problem som uppstod vid uppstarten hade kunnat förhindras om det funnits bättre maskiner eller att tillgången till maskinist från leverantör hade funnits på plats redan från starten. En del av problemen hade alltså kunnat förhindras eller reduceras redan vid kalkyleringen. Av resultaten som kan avläsas kring cyklerna har många olika faktorer spelat en stor roll kring huruvida effektiviteten och kapaciteterna förbättras. Dessa resultat redovisas i diagram där helheten visas kring de cykler som uppmätts och i mer specifika diagram där varje moment behandlas var för sig. Många olika slutsatser har dragits gällande de olika faktorer som påverkar effektiviteten. Lastningen, som är det mest kritiska momentet i cykeln, har visat sig kunna effektiviseras desto längre projektet fortskridit. / Planning a tunnel project presents certain difficulties in deciding how long the job will take, particularly at the start of production. This can lead to miscalculated quotations concerning both time and cost. A miscalculation of how much time a project may need can increase costs long-term and thus lead to lower revenues. In order to avoid such pitfalls, one measure is to identify the problems that can arise during production and prevent them. Therefore, measuring’s have been made during the start-up of a tunnel project in Norsborg. Even if measuring’s have been performed on a specific project, the expectation is that they can be used at later tunnel projects as well. Many results and conclusions can also be applied to other tunnel projects, and possibly even to completely different types of construction projects. The measuring’s have taken place at the project site and have included timekeeping of the various work tasks that have taken place during start-up and each cycle. A cycle covers all work that happens when blasting a full tunnel opening; that is, from the initial drilling for a charge until the charge has burst and all the rock has been cleared and loaded from the tunnel opening. Any problems and their respective causes during this process have been recorded. The number of drill holes and their length, how much explosives that have been used and how many holes that have been primed with charges, has been documented so that capacity during the various tasks could be outlined. The start-up is recorded on a weekly circle chart showing how much of the total work time has been spent on each task. It also shows any stoppages during the week. The charts provide a good overview of the proceedings during start-up and what tasks have taken more time than others. The charts show that many of the problems that arose during start-up could have been prevented if better machinery or an operator from the contractor had been available on-site from the start. Some problems could also have been prevented or diminished as early as the project planning stage.  By the results that can be read from the cycles many factors have played a big role of the improvement of the efficiency and the capacity. These results are shown in charts where the whole cycles can be studied and in more specific charts where every task are examined individually. Many conclusions have been read regarding the different factors that affects the efficiency. The loading that is the most critical task within the cycle have been able to become more efficient the longer the project has proceeded.