A method includes: determining, by an access network device, at least one piece of downlink control information, where the downlink control information includes at least one slot format indication; and sending, by the access network device, the downlink control information to a group of user equipment on a group common downlink control channel, where the group of user equipment operates in M bandwidth parts, the at least one slot format indication is used to indicate a slot format corresponding to N numerologies of the M bandwidth parts, and both N and M are positive integers greater than 1.