Abstract: Objective: Metro vehicle maintenance department is an important composition part of metro system, which currently lacks a unified calculation method for its personnel capacity allocation in China, and reasonable determination of metro project personnel capacity allocation has a significant effect on saving investment and reducing operation costs, for this purpose the study of metro vehicle maintenance department personnel capacity calculation method is carried out.Method: After sorting out the research status of urban rail transit system personnel capacity in China, the organizational structure, function and post setting of the vehicle maintenance department are summarized and analyzed. Various factors affecting personnel capacity allocation such as personnel work efficiency, maintenance workload, post shift system, equipment configuration and usage frequency are fully considered. The capacity calculation methods for vehicle maintenance workshop, equipment workshop and technical management posts are proposed. Result & Conclusion: By applying this method, the personnel capacity allocation schemes for the vehicle maintenance department under different post shift systems are determined. Existing problems are analyzed, and solutions are put forward. It is found from case calculation that: (1) if fourshift system is adopted for shift operations, personnel utilization insufficiency and human resource waste will consequently occur, thus it is recommended to adopt ′balanced repair′ mode for optimal capacity number; (2) using the ′oneshift′ line inspection shift and the ′twoshift′ biweekly inspection shift can also reduce capacity number, reducing maintenance workshop frontline staff number by 15, 49, and 56 for the early, short and long term respectively.