A partnership that has helped disabled people connect with a popular ride service launched in Houston at midnight.

Uber officials confirmed UberACCESS, which offers wheelchair-accessible rides for the same price as UberX, began service Wednesday. Like all Uber service, it is available via smartphone app, 24 hours a day.

“I’m thrilled to see Uber applying the same creative ingenuity to provide more consumer choices and opportunities for Houstonians with accessibility needs,” former California Congressman Tony Coelho, co-author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, said in a statement. “UberACCESS will empower people requiring wheelchair accessible vehicles to get a ride when they need one by simply pressing a button.”

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The service fulfills a goal of the city’s transportation accessibility task force that helped write regulations related to allowing Uber to operate legally in Houston. As part of its suggestions, the task force allowed taxi companies and app-based companies a choice of having a set number of vehicles that were wheelchair accessible or provide service to disabled residents based on how quickly they could provide a ride.

Toby Cole, who led the accessibility committee, said the goal of both options is improved quality of service for those who are blind, wheelchair-dependent or otherwise in need of assistance.

“I am hopeful,” Cole said of the rules leading to better service. “We tried to close down as many loopholes as possible.”

Taxi drivers and company owners argued the rules allowed Uber to avoid costly wheelchair-accessible vehicles they were required to purchase. The companies have sparred about virtually every aspect of changing Houston’s rules for providing rides.

A promotional code typed into the Uber app allows riders to add the “access” option. Members of the task force stressed in August, when the city’s proposed rules on disability access were submitted to a city council committee, that it was vital the service be within Uber’s existing app and not require an additional step.

“I was very clear about that and the committee was clear about that,” Cole said, adding he hoped the promotion code was temporary.

In other markets where UberACCESS has debuted, the company has partnered with other firms capable of providing rides to wheelchair-bound riders. Company officials would not disclose the name of the Houston area partner.

Unveiling the service comes after some in the disability rights community have criticized Uber and a similar company, Lyft, that left Houston when the city rules for transportation network companies went into effect 18 months ago. In some cities, the companies have been sued for canceling trips or refusing to allowing service animals into vehicles.

Houston officials will closely monitor complaints against both taxi companies and app-based firms, said Lara Cottingham, deputy assistant director in the city's Regulatory Affairs Department.

“We will enforce through customer complaints (reports that they are not providing service within the allotted time period) as well as verifying their trip statistics in the data they report,” she said.

Despite some tense negotiations, Cottingham said the companies and city found agreement.

“(Uber) came to the table and worked with leaders from the taxi, limo and disabilities community for over a year to create an ordinance that had support from the entire industry—something no other city in the country had been able to achieve,” Cottingham said.