Drivers can easily feel fatigue and aprosexia due to the high temperature inside the locomotive driver cabin in summer. The current locomotive driver cabin air-conditioning system cannot meet the needs of operating condition and environmental protection. It is a very urgent task to develop an air-conditioning system which is suitable for application in internal combustion engine locomotive driver cabin.. The present locomotive driver cabin air-conditioners usually use alternating current to drive the piston refrigeration compressors whose refrigerants are R12 or R22. The COP of the system is low. The refrigerant leaks easily. The internal combustion engine generator can only provide direct current, which is converted into alternating current by an inverter. A great deal of diesel oil has to be consumed to generate electricity. The inverter is complex in structure, with low reliability, and high cost. This paper presents a novel adsorption air-conditioning system used in internal combustion engine locomotive driver cabin. This system employs the zeolite-water as working pairs and is driven by the waste heat from exhaust gas of internal combustion engine. This new system consists of an adsorber and a cold storage evaporator, then the refrigeration capacity can be continuously and steadily provided to the locomotive driver cabin for space cooling instead of the electric vapor compression air-conditioning system. Experiments and prototype machine operation showed that this new type of system could meet the demands of air conditioning for locomotive driver cabin. This paper presents some results of experiment and prototype systems. The characteristics of system are discussed as well. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.