* Traffic graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/3dAnu94
By Simon Scarr
May 13 (Reuters) - Strict lockdowns, school closures and
restrictions on commerce to curb the novel coronavirus in
Southeast Asian countries brought a rare respite from the
transport mayhem that is the norm in some of the world's most
congested cities.
Data from ride-hailing firm Grab shows snapshots of traffic
congestion before and during the curbs, delivering a stark,
almost startling picture of how the crammed cities came to a
halt.
(Click https://tmsnrt.rs/3dAnu94 to see a graphic depicting
this traffic data in cities across Southeast Asia)
The data collected from GPS location pings from Grab
ride-hailing drivers also allows for comparative views of the
cities under lockdown.
In Manila, strict home quarantine has kept most of the
bustling capital's 3.5 million registered vehicles off the roads
since mid-March, bringing a huge difference in the flow of
traffic.
A 15-mile (23.8-km) drive down the length of Manila's
usually jammed Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue, that would normally
take more than two hours, took just 20 minutes on April 7, a
Reuters crew found.
That lockdown was extended on Tuesday to the end of May,
which would take it to 11 weeks, longer than that in China's
central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged.
Despite its strict curbs on movement, the Philippines has
struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus, compared
with its slightly less populous neighbour, Vietnam.
Traffic congestion in Ho Chi Minh City all but disappeared
during its lockdown.
Reductions in traffic in other cities such as Jakarta and
Singapore are less dramatic, though there is a lightening of the
load on the roads.
In Kuala Lumpur, famed for its peak-hour traffic snarl-ups,
traffic is building up again after curbs were eased this month
with many businesses now allowed to operate if they comply with
social distancing and other public health measures.
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Traffic graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/3dAnu94
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(Editing by Karishma Singh and Clarence Fernandez)