To advance the energy conservation of subway stations, this study focused on the optimization of control strategies for ventilation and airconditioning (VAC) systems. In this study, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were selected as representative cities for the cold, hotsummer coldwinter, and hotsummer warmwinter regions, respectively. In addition, a model of a subway station with a platform screen door system was established using a transient system simulation program (TRNSYS). The performances of automation and optimized timetable control were compared in terms of station environment, energy performance, and renovation costs. The results show that both automation and optimized timetable control can effectively improve the station air temperature during the cooling season, thereby achieving a similar station environment. Automatic control can reduce the annual energy consumption of the VAC system by 41%49% compared with the current conventional timetable control, whereas optimized timetable control can decrease the annual energy use by 38%48%. For renovation costs, optimized timetable control merely requires improvement in management without supplementing devices, whereas automatic control requires higher equipment and maintenance costs. Therefore, we recommend the adoption of optimized timetable control for subway stations to achieve energy savings.