strange people and public transport

I am a bit fan of public transport, especially because you meet the really strange people there. Today I met again a _very_ strange person. When I reached the tram stop there was a man of about 40 to 50 years old with a fine black suit. When I reached the platform he walked towards me and then asked when the next tram will arrive. At least this is what I supposed he wanted to know. Actually it was not a real question but some fragments of almost incomprehensible fragments of German sentences and numbers. I wondered why he didn't look at the time table himself. Anyway I told him that the next tram will arrive in about 5 minutes. He took his mobile phone, starred at it, and walked slowly away some meters. About two minutes staring at his mobile phone and some places of the tram stop platform he walked again towards me and began again talking to me in incomplete and strange fragments about when the tram will arrive. I wondered whether he was drunk but apart from his articulation nothing seemed to point to this assumption. So was he some foreigner that was not really fluent in German and thus did not understand what I explained him two minutes earlier and cannot formulate correct and complete sentences? But although his articulation was pretty strange I didn't get the impression that there was any foreign accent. I decided to explain him again. He confirmed what I told him so that I was sure he did understand this time and then walked again away some meters and stared at his mobile phone. Some more minutes later he came again to ask his strange questions about the time and the tram showing that he seems to have forgotten everything that I told him a few minutes ago. I decided that it is worthless to invest many time in explanations again and just gave him a short answer. The situation repeated. Unfortunately the tram was late this time which allowed the situation to repeat multiple times. While the situation was repeating multiple times there was one instance with an interesting variation. Once he didn't walk towards me but towards the time table, reading in a loud voice numbers from the time table that were not listed there. I felt somehow relieved when the tram finally came along to move me out of this Groundhog Day situation.