The work aims to put forward the existing problems and corresponding solutions by sorting out and analyzing the research status of subway evacuation system design and discuss the focus of follow-up research in this field. Based on the concept of legibility and combined with the characteristics of subway incidents, the important aspects affecting the design of subway evacuation system, such as emergency evacuation path, emergency information transmission, emergency facilities technology and emergency management technology were studied and analyzed through the retrieval, collection and arrangement of a large number of documents. Explosion, flood and emergency braking are the three most frequent accidents in subway accidents, which have the characteristics of suddenness, closure, panic and complexity. The perfect design of subway evacuation systems includes emergency behavior characteristics, emergency information transmission, emergency facilities technology, emergency management technology, etc. The presentation and publicity of emergency information in subway space should have higher legibility, which is highly advantageous to help people understand and read the related important information and know how to act in emergencies so as to take preventive measures. However, there are fewer researches on the legibility of subway emergency information, not forming a system, so this can be the focus of future research.