Method for detecting travel information

A method for acquiring traffic situation data in a network of traffic routes which is covered by a cellular mobile radio network having a large number of base stations having a unique identifier, and in which a large number of vehicles move, each being provided with an operating mobile terminal for the mobile radio network, information about the contact between the terminals and the base stations being used to estimate the current location of terminals, characterized

• in that, at least for part of the network of traffic routes, in which the base stations have a transmission range with a cell radius which is of the order of magnitude of the distance between adjacent traffic routes to be distinguished from one another, characteristic patterns are determined in the sense of sequences of the identifiers of those base stations with which a terminal respectively makes contact as it moves along a route, are assigned to the respective route and permanently stored,
• and in that in order to obtain current traffic situation information for selected terminals, in each case the current sequence of the base stations contacted by this terminal is determined, compared with the stored characteristic patterns and used to decide in which part of the route the respective terminal is presently located.