It has been demonstrated that either Channel Allocation (CA) or Relay Selection (RS) can improve the performance in relaying networks separately. However, there is little work concerning their combination in multi-cell uplink scenarios. In this paper, we investigate the issue which considers the CA and RS to optimize the system transmission rate in an uplink scenario, while maintaining the resource distribution fairness among users. This is first formulated as an optimization problem for a linear cellular system, where the same frequency channels can be reused in different cells. Based on the link and co-channel interference conditions, two low-complexity CA and RS schemes are then proposed with different decomposition sequences. Finally, numerical results are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed CA and RS methods. Simulations results show that the proposed methods can yield significant improvements in system performance in terms of average sum rate. It has been demonstrated that either Channel Allocation (CA) or Relay Selection (RS) can improve the performance in relaying networks separately. which considers the CA and RS to optimize the system transmission rate in an uplink scenario, while maintaining the resource distribution fairness among users. where the same frequency channels can be reused in different Based on the link and co-channel interference conditions, two low-complexity CA and RS schemes are then proposed with different decomposition sequences. Finally, numerical results are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed CA and RS methods. Simulations results show that the proposed methods can yield significant improvements in system performance in terms of average sum rate.