Abstract: It is important for urban rail transit to meet the passenger demand and improve the transportation efficiency to improve its attraction. The train operation plan and train timetable optimization of urban rail transit were studied herein to optimize the relationship among transport capacity, passenger demand, and transport efficiency of the transit.  The train operation plan was created based on the passenger  demand firstly. Then, an optimization model with the minimum passenger waiting time as goal was built based on the train operation plan with the train operation safety and capacity as constraints. A genetic harmony search algorithm was designed to solve the proposed model. An example was provided to verify the proposed model and algorithm. The proposed model and algorithm can provide a basis for decision making to match the transport capacity and demand of urban rail transit.

Key words: urban rail transit, passenger demand, train operation plan, train timetable optimization, genetic harmony search algorithm, passenger waiting time