The traffic performance of urban expressway is subject to non-recurring and recurring events, which may cause heavy congestion and vehicles long queuing on ramps. The low performance may bring more traffic delay to the whole network of urban road. This paper presents a new method, the joint control of variable speed control and on-ramp metering, which attempts to improve the level of traffic operations on urban expressway. By analyzing traffic flow on urban expressway, an optimum control strategy of variable speed and on-ramp metering is established in the paper. The traffic performance of urban expressway is subject to non-recurring and recurring events, which may cause heavy congestion and vehicles long queuing on ramps. The low performance may bring more traffic delay to the whole network of urban road. This paper presents a new method , the joint control of variable speed control and on-ramp metering, which attempts to improve the level of traffic operations on urban expressway. an analysis of variable speed and on-ramp metering is established in the paper.