An efficient public transport is more than ever a crucial factor when it comes to the quality of life and competitiveness of many cities and regions in Asia. In recent years, the rail‐based urban mass transit has been regarded as one of the key means to overcoming the great challenges in Chinese megacities. The purpose of this study is going to develop a coherent network optimizing for rail‐based urban mass transit to find the best alternatives for the user and to demonstrate how to meet sustainable development needs and to match the enormous capacity requirements simultaneously. This paper presents an introduction to the current situation of the important lines, and transfer points in the metro system Shanghai. The insufficient aspects are analyzed and evaluated; while the optimizing ideas and measurements are developed and concreted. A group of examples are used to illustrate the approach. The whole study could be used for the latest reference for other megacities which have to be confronted with the similar situations and processes with enormous dynamic travel and transport demands.