I was perhaps a bit harsh during the Ridgeway walk in describing the people you may sometimes encounter on the bus. They really are I suppose only a cross-section of life. Although happily we are now concession pass holders, the people differ considerably at certain times of the day, but we will concentrate on just the a.m. & early p.m. passenger as the evening reveller is for another time!
Let me explain; Up until say 9am it would be fair to say it starts off with people with a job to go to, they don't talk much and have just one focus, that is, the bus being on time and then not being held up in traffic, which of course will make them late for work or perhaps missing the train or bus connection.
Busses do their best but its never going to be 100%. Ageing fleets on some routes leave passengers high and dry with not infrequent bus breakdowns. Our weather or simply traffic congestion is there for all to share but those wonderful bus-lanes can leave you feeling pretty smug as the bus scoots past queuing cars with ease, making the journey times somewhat shorter for buses than for cars in city and town centres. Bus-stops are great if it's you that is embarking or alighting but once you are on board they become a real pain! You constantly inwardly ask yourself, why people on board don't wait and get off at a later stop or perhaps those getting on just take a few more steps to the next stop? Why keep stopping the bus, its only just got going! Why don't the motorists read the notice on the back of the bus and let us out? Why does the bus not take the main road and keep turning off-piste to pick up or drop off just the odd person? I am sure they wouldn't mind walking another half-mile to the next stop……..these are all things that are probably only noticed by those of us more used to driving or have driven around in our 'personal-bubble' mode of transport for many years,
I almost missed describing another 'before 9am' traveler, the schoolchild! They more often than not have their own subsidised transport, no not their Mum, but the much loved,school bus! This special bus is thankfully usually exclusive for school children. It has permanently steamed up windows, even in the summer, so I am never sure how many kids are on board. We all hear the stories of what they get up to but as we never travel with them it can only be hearsay. I choose to believe they are simply finishing off essays or practicing for their French oral exams,
The bus is chartered by the council after a tendering system (cheapest) going back many years. It used to be a good way for our local and very respectable coach company to make their fleet pay when not taking groups on day trips to Blackpool or mystery tours to Earlswood Lakes**. These coach companies generally used their more ageing transport for obvious reasons and their more ageing and hence more tolerant drivers, who would share friendly banter with the children rather than try to exterminate them.
Things have changed now, not the going out to tender bit, but the not inconsiderable fleet of post-war, bid-winning buses, given a hand-coated once-over garish paint-job and now being driven by a driver who has scant regard for the traditional driver dress code of shirt and tie. We entrust our children in these, twice round the clock, exhaust-emitting monsters without a thought, whereas at home we wrap them in cotton wool and drive cars built like tanks, we strap them in full harness seat belts with air-bags popping out of every conceivable place should we even do an emergency stop, but once we say bye-bye in the morning, they're on their own mate! 
The sheer numbers of these buses at the bewitching hours starting at 7:00am and again at 3:00pm is staggering. They follow each other from outside the school gates in an impressive convoy, after being parked up in a lay-by for most of the day where they continue to decay at a rate that will give them perhaps only another 25years of service. It's a job to spot the age of the fleet by looking at the number-plates as the bus company have cleverly nabbed personal plates with their own initials like BU5 TED. If you care to follow these buses, after they have disgorged our children, they take very convoluted and countrified back-routes home to a 'depot' where they are meticulously serviced and maintained, ready for tomorrow and another good-deed day! It's what happens with these fleets in the long school holidays is perhaps for another story, or blog me if you know more! I have my suspicions that they appear in classic commercial-motor vehicle events or appear at local fetes where they act as temporary indoor seating should it rain. Perhaps they cleverly turn them into play-buses by simply removing the seats and filling them with trampolines....or whatever!
So…….. after 9:00am or more usually 9:30am in most parts of the country, a new breed of traveller appears, silvery-grey in appearance with their bus concessions carefully concealed in special pockets in their purses and wallets so you don't even see their photo on the piece of plastic!
A deft touch is all it needs before taking their free seats to wherever they want to go! And there is no shortage of places to go, the only restriction is the 11:30pm curfew imposed by the bus companies on boarding their last bus home obviously done for their customers own good as they should be fast-asleep at that time of day. In the unlikely event of them wanting to travel at weekends, there are no restrictions, but of course the bus then has fare paying passengers to rub shoulders with and that simply wouldn't do.
The more spritely of the silvery bunch prefer to leave the downstairs gossip and ailment chats behind to sprint upstairs in the hope of bagging a front seat, possibly to get the views or just to reminisce their childhood memories of riding the front seat with all the thrills of ducking at railway bridges & overhanging branches or pretending to steer using the front handrails. So even if its just to go shopping or perhaps the whist-drive, then just a one or two-stop hop can make all the difference to their independence and fear of isolation. For the senior techies they may be able to go on-line with the bus free-wifi to see how their investments are doing or checking out Zoopla to see if its time to down-size and cash in on their inflated house price. 
But don't knock them, most have worked hard for this day, many having started work at 15 and even then they would have already done early morning paper rounds or evening grocery deliveries since they were 11 or 12! ( my life story in-a-nutshell )!
The more adventurous will have meticulously planned their day using their apps and tablets to download PDFs of maps, routes & timetables before embarking on precisely prepared journeys to towns villages and of course ……….where we started….. Yes, Bus friendly Walks
** Early childhood memories was to take a FAMILY 'mystery tour' from Brighton sea-front,only to find we travel to Earlswood Lakes, just a stone's throw from we lived and where I spent a lot of my childhood. not much of a mystery for us!