Conventional ventilated embankments are commonly used on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to reduce embankment settlement. However, the shortcoming of these systems may make them unsuitable for the Qinghai-Tibet Expressway (QTE). The heat absorption area of expressways in cold regions is significantly larger than that of railways, which results in a rapid temperature rise of the embankment above the permafrost, which significantly reduces the stability of the embankments. To facilitate the cooling of the expressway, the authors designed a novel ventilated embankment (NVE) structure and studied its cooling capacity. The results indicate that the NVE has a remarkable cooling effect. At the same location, the ground temperature under the NVE is clearly lower than that under the normal embankment. Moreover, the intelligent control ventilation mode of the NVE, which compares the soil and air temperatures to determine when to open and close ventilation pipes, provides better cooling performance than conventional ventilated embankments. To optimize the cooling effect of the ventilated pipe and construction of the subgrade, the following ideal pipe layout method is proposed: the pipe diameter is 0.4 m, the pipe spacing is 2.4 m, and the burial depth of the pipe is 0.0 m. With a decrease in site temperature and an increase in embankment height, the maximum pumping distance of the NVE increases. These results establish a theoretical basis for the future application of NVEs in engineering.