A communication system includes two or more ring networks in which nodes are connected in a ring shape, carries out ERP for each of the ring networks, sets one of the ring networks as a major ring that detects a failure in a shared link, and sets the other ring networks as sub rings. A shared node, which terminates the shared link, includes: a failure monitoring unit that respectively detects, concerning two or more of the ring networks that share the shared link, failures in the ring networks; a switching processing unit that determines, on the basis of a detection result of the failures, the ring network set as the major ring; and ERP processing units that store, when the switching is performed by the switching processing unit, identification information after the switching in an R-APS frame and transfer or transmit the frame.