A new taxi service is promising to make Moscow friendlier to the million-plus disabled people who live here.

When modern Moscow was built, wheelchair access was not at the top of the agenda, but City Hall is starting to wake up to the needs of disabled Muscovites.

Specially-fitted buses now operate in some areas, but as they are few and far between, a state-subsidized service called "social taxi" has been introduced to get over a million disabled commuters on the move.

“We have 170 specially-equipped cars in our fleet,” Ilya Kanavin, the head of Moscow's social taxi service, told RT. “We receive around two thousand calls a day and process over a thousand bookings.We are very busy. We serve people with all disabilities – there are no limitations.”

The taxi service is not without its critics, like Dmitry Gusev -who has been a wheelchair user since the age of 14.

“It’s very hard to move around Moscow,” Gusev told RT. “There are serious obstacles everywhere, so I have to use a taxi. But social taxi is not always convenient – I have to get coupons to pay for it, and I can’t always order it when I need it. Once I was told to call back in a month because all of their cars were fully booked.”

Roman Kolpakov became wheelchair bound over a decade ago, and says he knows all too well how unreliable the social taxi is. As a result, Kolpakov set up a taxi firm in hopes of easing the problem.

“We started almost two years ago but we are still operating at a loss,” Kolpakov, who owns Invataxi, told RT. “We pay for all the costs out of our own pockets. We get a lot of phone calls from customers but the price of our service puts many of them off.”

Indeed, the cost of Roman’s services is at least twice as much as the social taxi, so he has been on the lookout for sponsors to help him lower prices.

When it comes to public transport, Moscow’s underground is renowned as one of the most beautiful in the world – and is a sure way to beat traffic. Despite being fast and affordable, however, it is not available for all.

One can count the number of stations with disabled access on their fingers. And while you may be able to get inside, there is no guarantee that you will be able to get out on the other end. And since every step could be a barrier, many parts of Moscow remain a no-go zone.