[nomel]

> Maybe this behavour is very locale dependent?

That could be. Maybe they were ahead of schedule the few times I went, and the few times I observed them stopping at empty stops. This would make sense with the fact that they are almost always empty. They would come to a complete stop, open the door, immediately close the door, then peel away. It was comically discouraging. With the stop near my place, they would often just drive up, slow down to walking pace, then speed off.

Even if they were ahead of schedule, this would still mean the posted trip times were still many times greater than driving, which I assume is why they're empty.