Well, Acela isn&#x27;t really high speed rail; it only shaves off about an hour compared to the regular train (and costs around twice as much).<p>But, that aside, Acela is really competing with air. Their bread and butter traveler is traveling on business and they&#x27;re taking Acela over a plane because they prefer to travel on Acela for a variety of reasons. They don&#x27;t really care about cost within reason.<p>Those same travelers won&#x27;t typically take a bus. If they do, they&#x27;ll take something like the LimoLiner which is priced in the same ballpark as Amtrak. (I tried it once and didn&#x27;t like it as much.) However, regular buses are always going to be the cheapest option both because they&#x27;re typically competing for price-sensitive customers and they can take advantage of a a road network that already exists and that they don&#x27;t need to maintain (other than whatever taxes they pay).