Abstract: As a theory to study complex social-technical systems,cognitive work analysis can effectively analyze the cognitive needs of the personnel in the system and obtain the system potential configuration to support the performance of the team. Taking metro train dispatching team as research object,based on cognitive work analysis theory,metro train dispatching team emergency task model including team work domain analysis model,team control task analysis model,team strategy analysis model and team competency analysis model is built. Analysis is carried out on the potential demands of emergency tasks from four dimensions of function constraints, task constraints, organization constraints and personnel constraints. In addition,the model is validated in a typical metro signal fault processing scenario. The results show that cognitive work analysis theory has application significance in ensuring metro operation safety.