Embodiments of the present invention provide a transport network control method, a controller, and a node. The method includes: receiving, by a controller, a control request message of a path; determining, according to topology information of a transport network and an atomic behavior that is supported by each node in the transport network, at least one node that the path passes through in the transport network and at least one atomic behavior that the at least one node needs to execute; and sending a path configuration message that includes the atomic behavior to the at least one node correspondingly, so that each node configures a transport plane to execute the atomic behavior included in the message.