Abstract: The industry is proactively exploring the development of smart urban rail transit （hereinafter referred to as SURT）currently, and it is urgent to carry out in depth research on the development trend of SURT construction. Research hotspots of SURT mainly focus on SURT system architecture, urban rail transit cloud platform, service intelligence, ′green and intelligent integration′ development, and the application of 5G (the 5th generation mobile communication technology) in SURT. Based on the planning and design experiences of SURT in Xiamen, Nanjing and other cities, problems existing in the planning and construction process of SURT are analyzed from the perspective of construction units and design institutes. The SURT development model based on data flow is constructed, and the SURT development is divided into four stages: automation stage, low level intelligent stage, intermediate intelligent stage and advanced intelligent stage. Three development trends of the future SURT are forecasted, that is, the transition from management and control to analysis, from cost oriented to profit oriented and from experience driven to data driven.