The virtual path simplifies cell processing in ATM networks, while a good resource management strategy enables virtual channel connection to be established quickly and efficiently. Methods of constructing VP and the strategies of managing and allocating resources greatly affect the system performance. The paper proposes an architecture called 'zoned architecture', and the corresponding method of constructing VP. Related work about the multicast routing of the zoned architecture has been studied. The paper mainly focuses on routing and fault recovery; the various methods and strategies are studied for bandwidth control, re-routing, resource management and fault recovery. This model is evaluated by simulation experiment; and the performance measurements, such as bandwidth utilisation, blocking probability, re-routing ratio and recovery ratio, are obtained.