If you are in Johannesburg or Cape Town South Africa and you don’t want to hire a car and also not keen on being driven around by a taxi, then you are just in the right city as a new car-sharing app, Locomute offers exactly that, CCTV Africa reports.

Launched five month ago, the app, that borrows heavily from other international car sharing networks like Zipcar and Autolib, has been a become a hit with business persons in the cities inner circle for only a short while.

Locomute co-founder, Nthando Kubheka, says the company is looking to expend to Durban by the end of this year and into the rest of Africa by 2017, starting with the major cities like Lagos in Nigeria and Nairobi in Kenya.

“Our clients are professional, entrepreneurs, small businesses and (other) people. Once you have the app and the logins you’re ready to go,” Kubheka told CCTV Africa.

The principle behind Locomute is simple.

Register with the service via an app on your phone, and when you need a car it’ll tell you where there’s one you can drive parked nearby via an interactive map.

All you have to do is walk to the car, unlock it using the app and then punch in a one-time PIN to release the keys, which are handily hidden in the glove box. Drive the car to your destination, lock the keys away and walk off, you’re done.

Locomute members or Locomuters have access all their cars parked, called Locoparks, throughout South Africa. The locations of available Locomute cars can be found online or through a smartphone app.

The service makes it possible for people to rent a vehicle for an hour or two for short trips, instead of renting a car for a day or using mass transit.

“For us we are moving to the next level early next year where we are going to do person to person sharing where we allow normal people to plug their cars into our network and we plug in the technology,”

“It will help us to spread the risk and also help us expand very quickly.”