Liquid-phase oxidation of toluene with air has become the main technology for producing benzoic acid in a reactor at present. Based on the kinetic model of the toluene oxidation process obtained from laboratory and mass balance of key component, a novel model is established to simulate the industrial toluene oxidation process, in which the effects of benzaldehyde and benzyl alcohol are considered and the kinetic parameters are revised by industrial data. The simulation results show that the error of benzoic acid yield is within 3.5%. Based on the simulation model, to maximize the benzoic acid yield, an optimization model is proposed to optimize the operating parameters, including toluene feed-in mass flux and temperature. The optimization result indicates that on the allowable operating conditions, the maximum benzoic acid yield obtained with the reaction temperature at 167.2 degrees C and the mass flux at 104.1 t.h(-1) is greater than the current one, which can be used to guide industrial reactor's operation.