A digital radio transmission system having a first terminal office (10), a second terminal office (20) and at least one drop/insertion (DI) office (30) located therebetween. Long distance lines between the first and second terminal offices are handled in the DI office together with first and short distance lines each being replaced by first and second protection lines, respectively. A protection line for the long distance lines is realized by commonly using the first and second protection lines inherently allotted to the first and second short distance lines. Further the line switching, due to a fault in the long distance line, from the faulty long distance line to the both the first and second short line side protection lines can be achieved by communicating a particular line switching control signal among all the offices.