Research purposes: With the acceleration of urbanization in China, urban space is expanding.To meet the passenger flow distribution between urban and suburban areas and alleviate the pressure of urban traffic, more and more cities are planning to construct urban rail transit system.In the design of the longitudinal section of the urban rail rapid transit line, the design concept of the V type energy-saving slope of the urban rail transit longitudinal section is often referred to. After years of development, urban rail transit system energy-saving slope profile design has been relatively mature, but because of the low speed, small station spacing of urban rail transit, and urban rail rapid transit speed is high, the station spacing is large, if the profile using energy-saving design of slope will has some problems such as large buried depth, range drainage pumping station implementation difficulties and large geological change. It is necessary to study and compare the W and V slopes for the longitudinal section design based on the characteristics of the urban rail transit line, to explore more rational design concepts. Research conclusions:Through the comparative analysis of the W type slope and the V type energy-saving slope traction calculation map, it is found that the unit energy consumption of the W type slope train is within the normal range. Through the comprehensive comparison and selection of economic and safety of project, the W type slope in the urban rail transit longitudinal section design has better adaptability:(1)The energy consumption of the W type slope is slightly higher than that of the V type slope, but the implementation of the interval depth and drainage pumping station is reasonable.(2)The use of W type longitudinal section can reduce the depth of the section, and it is safer and more economical for the implementation of the interval drainage pump house and related facilities.(3)The research result is applicable to the section longitudinal section design with high speed of urban rail transit and large station spacing. © 2018, Editorial Department of Journal of Railway Engineering Society. All right reserved.