Road tunnels constructed by shield method have been widely used in urban road network. The operation ventilation of those road runnels, which controls the air quality in the tunnels, has important influence on the passenger’s health and traffic safety. In the paper, the main principles and attentions for the ventilation design of current shieldbored road tunnels are presented by means of investigation, induction, summary and technical validation based on years of practices, so as to standardize and improve the ventilation techniques of road tunnels. The advantages and disadvantages of different operation ventilation modes are presented, and the application ranges of different ventilation modes are pointed out. The principles and key procedure of the design of normal operation ventilation and fire ventilation are explained on basis of typical practices, and the key technologies for ventilation design of evacuation passages and equipment passages are discussed. It is concluded that the ventilation design should be coordinated with the monitoring system and the firefighting system, so as to ensure the overall function of road tunnels constructed by shield method. Furthermore, trends to solve problems in operation ventilation of shieldbored road tunnels, such as high energy consumption of ventilators and large space occupation of exhaust air treatment equipment, are pointed.