Method and device for reducing the amount of data to be transmitted from vehicles of a fleet of sample vehicles

The data reduction system is used for the data provided by the floating car relating to the traffic and road conditions and the vehicle position within a defined coordinate system relative to a given target point. The vehicle data and position data is assigned to a corresponding class in dependence on typical vehicle characteristics, with transmission of this class, together with the position data, in coded form to the central traffic management processor. Pref. only an identification for the detected vehicle characteristics pattern is transmitted to the central traffic management processor with the position data of the floating car.