Why all this "hate mail" about freeloaders?
My father-in-law is almost 80 years old. He has worked and paid taxes all his life and runs a car, but his driving standards are deteriorating with age. He lives near Chesterfield and we live in Manchester, and any car journey between the two towns is arduous and full of dangerous corners, hairpin bends, etc, unless you take a very long way around by motorway.
Now he could catch the train, but even with a railcard this is expensive and not a direct journey.
Or he could go on the bus. To be exact, four buses. Admittedly it talkes rather a long time but that is a commodity he has plenty of. At one time this would have been a poor choice since he could have used a local authority pass to give him half fare within Derbyshire but he would have had to pay full fare once over the GM border. Now he goes for free, he is not depriving anyone of a seat since these buses largely transport around empty seats and he's not polluting the environment or putting himself and others in danger by driving.
Occasionally he might have a day out in somewhere like Sheffield or Nottingham; he has to use his mind to work out the connections and use his feet to walk around the town he's visited. This we would encourage of course as being of mental and physical value compared to sitting at home reluctant to afford the high costs of public transport in the UK.
Fortunately I think we've had the major beefs and scare-mongering and posturing from councils and bus operators - I simply can't see any national political party withdrawing such a great concession from people who, on the whole, have worked hard all their lives and have got some deserved free time. And I think the problems e.g. with the over-full Yorkshire Coastliner are a very small number of services.