In order to study the propagation pattern of vibration wave generated by urban subway operation in buildings adjacent to the metro and provide guidance for engineering practice, this paper takes adjacent buildings along the subway line as the research object and refer to the range of actual quantities to establish the general finite element numerical model of subway train-rail-tunnel-ground-building system. The transmission distribution and spectral characteristics of vibration response of the same floor and different floors in the building are studied. The results show that the vibration excitation of the building caused by subway operation is mainly in the range of 1~50 Hz; The greater the room area, the more the natural vibration frequencies of the floor are located in the dominant frequency range of the excitation load, and the more prone it is to cause floor resonance; The vibration intensity of floor span midpoint is usually greater than that of corner point, and the vibration of corner point will exceed floor span midpoint in low frequency band of 1.25~2.0 Hz; The vibration acceleration response in three directions presents a fluctuating distribution trend with the rise of the floor. Through the calculation of several examples, the influential characteristics of running speed, tunnel burial depth and horizontal distance between building and tunnel are analyzed.