The use of static terrestrial laser scanning for the 3D data capturing of smaller scenes as well as airborne laser scanning from helicopters and fixed wing aircraft for data collection of large areas are well established tools. However, in spite of their general acceptance and wide use both methods have their limitations for projects that include the rapid and cost effective capturing of 3D data from larger street sections. This is especially true if these sections include tunnels or if dense point coverage of the facades of the neighbouring architecture is required. To extend the applicability of laser scanning to these kinds of projects, terrestrial cinematic laser scanning based on mobile mapping systems can be used. Within the paper the components, the workflow and the performance of the vehicle based “StreetMapper” system are described, which simultaneously uses four 2D-laser scanners for 3D data collection, while georeferencing is realised by a high performance GNSS/inertial navigation system. Within our investigations the accuracy of the measured 3D point clouds is determined using reference values from an existing 3D city model. As it will be demonstrated, the achievable accuracy levels of better than 30mm in good GPS conditions make the system practical for many applications in urban mapping.