According to the characteristics of opencast coal resources and dragline technology system application in China,the structure and shifting step of transport passage are optimized in this paper.Typical coal transport passage is analyzed in aspects such as the internal dump occupation,dragline operation efficiency,coal transport distance,upper stripping distance and shifting quantities.The middle passage should be given priority in thick overburden open pit mine because the dragline system is only responsible for part stripping task.According to characteristics of middle passage,the transport passage is divided into parallel climbing,vertical climbing and horizontal transport.In addition,the transport passage structure optimization model and shifting distance optimization model are established in this paper.The case study in Heidaigou open pit mine shows that,the parallel climbing height is accounted for about 60%of the total height,and reasonable shifting distances of the first mining area and the second mining area are 240 and 320 m.Sensitivity analysis shows that,the total passage height has important influence on the shifting step,so it is with the stripping height and passage construction cost to the passage structure. According to the characteristics of opencast coal resources and dragline technology system application in China, the structure and shifting step of transport passage are optimized in this paper .ypical coal transport passage is analyzed in aspect such as the internal dump occupation, dragline operation efficiency, coal transport distance, upper stripping distance and shifting quantities. The middle passage should be given priority in thick overburden open pit mine because the dragline system is only responsible for part stripping task. According to characteristics of middle passage, the transport passage is divided into parallel climb , vertical climbing and horizontal transport. addition, the transport passage structure optimization model and shifting distance optimization model are established in this paper. The case study in Heidaigou open pit mine shows that the parallel climbing height is accounted for about 60% of the total height, and reasonable shifting distance of the first mining a rea and the second mining area are 240 and 320 m. Sensitivity analysis shows that, the total passage height has important influence on the shifting step, so it is with the stripping height and passage construction cost to the passage structure.