Abstract. We apply a novel experimental procedure for the rapid measurement of the average volume mixing ratios (VMRs) and horizontal distributions of trace gases such as NO2, SO2, and HCHO in the boundary layer, which was recently suggested by Sinreich et al. (2013). The method is based on two-dimensional scanning multi-axis differential optical absorption spectroscopy (MAX-DOAS). It makes use of two facts (Sinreich et al. 2013): First, the light path for observations at 1° elevation angle traverses mainly air masses located close to the ground (typically < 200 m). Second, the light path length can be calculated using the simultaneous measured absorption of the oxygen dimer O4. Thus, the average value of the trace gas VMR in the atmospheric layer between the surface and the altitude, for which this observation was sensitive, can be calculated. Compared to the originally proposed method, we introduce several important modifications and improvements: We apply the method only to measurements at 1° elevation angles, for which the uncertainties are especially small. Using only 1 elevation angle also allows an increased temporal resolution. We apply correction factors (and their uncertainties) as function of the simultaneously modelled O4 absorption. In this way the correction factors can be directly determined according to the measured O4 dAMF. Finally, the method is extended to trace gases analysed at other wavelengths and also to the retrieval of the aerosol extinction. Depending on the atmospheric visibility, the typical uncertainty of the results ranges from about 15 to 30%. We apply the rapid method to observations of a newly developed ground-based multifunctional passive differential optical absorption spectroscopy (GM-DOAS) instrument in the north-west outskirt near Hefei City in China. We report NO2, SO2, and HCHO VMRs and aerosol extinction for four azimuth angles and compare these results with those from simultaneous long-path DOAS observations. Good agreement is found (squares of the correlation coefficients for NO2, SO2, and HCHO were 0.92, 0.84, and 0.59, respectively), verifying the reliability of this novel method. Similar agreement is found for the comparison of the aerosol extinction with results from visibility meters. Future studies may conduct measurements using a larger number of azimuth angles to increase the spatial resolution.