Abstract:A two-stage approach was proposed to solve the problem of connecting suburban rail line to urban rail network based on the current model’s impracticability. Focusing on the first stage, the paper articulates how the set of connection design schemes is generated. A greedy search based heuristic algorithm was designed to solve the optimization problem of connecting suburban lines and urban rail network. And optimum connection scheme set was sorted out from the perspectives respectively regarding optimization searching process and different transfer coefficients that reveal the dominance of transfer in path length. High quality of connection design schemes can be ensured by these optional designs, which can also cover various connection modes of different station spacing, providing solid basis for evaluation and selection in the second stage. Finally, the aforementioned method was implemented in an example, generating an optimized connection design set, which proves the applicability of this novel design method in large scale rail network connection problem.