After years of planning, the College Park and University of Maryland bike-share program — known as mBike — will officially launch after a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 4, said Anna McLaughlin, the assistant director for the Department of Transportation Services.

The program is a partnership with the bike-sharing company Zagster, which will install 14 bike stations for 120 bikes in locations around the city and campus for residents and students to use.

“We originally planned to launch with about 100 bikes,” said Jon Terbush, Zagster’s communications manager. “We’re launching 120 now, so we beat our initial goal by 20 percent and that was driven by increased demand that we saw.”

A day pass for a bike will cost $6, a monthly pass will be $25 and an annual pass will be $65. Trips lasting an hour or less are free, and after the first hour, users will be charged $3 per hour.

McLaughlin said the $3 charge for every hour over the initial three hour period should encourage users to return bikes so other customers can ride. She also said the program is committed to providing people alternate transportation.

“The purpose of the bike share in general is not to take the bike for a day, go out on the lawn, take a ride on the trails and all of that,” McLaughlin said. “They really are for transportation and getting people around.”

Users can also register and purchase passes through the Zagster smartphone app or on the mBike website after the program begins next week.

These users can check out bikes for free for unlimited hourly periods as long as it corresponds to the duration of their purchased pass.

“If you have a day pass it’s 24 hours, so within that 24 hours you can take a hundred bike rides you needed to or wanted to, because maybe a trip only lasted ten minutes,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin said several speakers are attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Stamp Student Union, including Zagster’s CEO Timothy Ericson and Vice President of Student Affairs Linda Clement. DOTS will also give out free day passes to people who attend the event, she said.

The mBike program will be Zagster’s first program to launch as a partnership between a university and a city, Terbush said.

“Instead of working with just the college, we’re working with the city as well so that it ultimately benefits everyone in the community,” he said.