Runway Incursion Risk Assessment Based on DEMATEL-Cloud-TOPSIS Model: A Case Study of China’s Chengdu Tianfu International Airport

Runway incursions (RIs) have emerged as a major threat to airport surface safety, driven by the coupled influence of human, equipment, environmental, and management factors. Conventional assessment methods struggle to simultaneously capture the fuzziness of expert linguistic judgment and the randomness of operational conditions. This study proposes an integrated DEMATEL–Cloud–TOPSIS framework for runway incursion risk assessment and validates it at Chengdu Tianfu International Airport. A hierarchical indicator system comprising 24 indicators across four dimensions—Human (H), Equipment (M), Environment (E), and Management (G)—was constructed from 90 RI cases collected between 2018 and 2023. DEMATEL quantified inter-indicator causal dependencies and DEMATEL-derived weights; the Cloud model translated linguistic expert judgments into digital characteristics (Ex, En, He); and TOPSIS produced relative closeness coefficients for risk ranking. Human, equipment, and environmental risks are all at a medium-risk, while management risk is at a low-risk, but significant differences still exist. Management achieved the highest closeness (Ci = 0.6322) and Environment the lowest (Ci = 0.5096). At the indicator level, ATC Instruction Accuracy (H1) exhibited the greatest operational maturity (Ci = 0.9119), whereas Unclear Crew Coordination (H6) showed the lowest relative closeness (Ci = 0.0156), followed by Aircraft Equipment (M5) (Ci = 0.0195). Meanwhile, Runway Configuration Complexity (E2) remained a weak structural factor within the Environmental dimension (Ci = 0.1502). The framework provides an interpretable, quantitative basis for targeted safety management at complex hub airports.