A city bus now carries potted flowers and greenery to keep passengers cool and calm during the summer.

Passengers were surprised to see green rattan plants winding on the handrails and flowers in the spare space where people cannot stand on an air-conditioned bus, one of the 68 buses on the No 58 route through the western part of Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, on Tuesday.

"Our buses always confront traffic jams because there is metro construction along our route, which adds a lot of time to the commute, thus making the passengers impatient especially in the hot weather, so we (the staff members) bought these plants to cool them down," Kang Jing, who is in charge of publicity for the bus route, said on Friday.

The plants were arranged to take little space and stay alive for a long time. The rattans are artificial but the flowers are real.

Similar plants will go on all air-conditioned buses on the route within a few days if the passengers welcome them, she said.