A contention-based uplink data transmission method, apparatus and system are provided. The method may include that: a main control node in a communication system receives data transmitted via uplink contention transmission resources, and decodes the data, wherein the uplink contention transmission resources are uplink transmission resources which the main control node allocates to a plurality of terminal nodes in the communication system and via which the plurality of terminal nodes transmits data in a contention-based way; and the main control node sends reception status information to each terminal node transmitting the data via the uplink contention transmission resources, wherein the reception status information reflects whether the data transmitted from each terminal node has been decoded successfully.