The train, thanks to Eurostar, may be the transport of the moment in Europe, but in the United States the most surprising story is the return of the inter-city bus. For the first time in 40 years, bus services have been growing in both the east and west, according to a study by the School of Public Service at DePaul University in Chicago.
  Long-established operators such as Greyhound are reporting an increase in ticket sales; upstarts such as the British-owned Megabus, which opened its Chicago hub in 2006, are expanding. Next week, a new minibus company, Shuttle Express, is to start a door-to-door service between Portland and Seattle, complete with wireless internet service and TV. It’s a remarkable turnaround.
   “Thank you for going Greyhound” was a slogan familiar to generations of Americans at the start of the last century, when towns of fewer than 100,000 people had bus stations with dozens of arrivals and departures every day. Then came cheap cars, interstate highways and growing crime in rundown city centres, where most bus stations were. By the mid-1970s, more than 80 per cent of households had at least one car, and airlines were experimenting with cheap fares. The bus, as the DePaul study puts it, became “a travel option of last resort”.
  So what’s changed? City centres have been revived and made safer. Dearer petrol and traffic jams are putting some people off driving, and delays and tighter security are putting them off flying. Bus companies – led by Megabus – are selling themselves as the smart, cheap and green alternative. The bus is back.