After months of discussion and logistical planning, the Boston Police Department’s body camera pilot program is tentatively scheduled to begin early next month, according to BPD officials who had been hoping for an earlier start.

Since no officers volunteered to put on the cameras (each about the size of a deck of cards), the department will assign 100 officers to wear them in the course of duty as the city begins to evaluate the effectiveness of the much-debated policy.

Five police districts will have officers with cameras, among them B-2, which includes Roxbury and part of Dorchester, and B-3, which includes Mattapan. Other neighborhoods that will be part of the program are Back Bay, Kenmore, Allston, Brighton, and Hyde Park.

The initiative is scheduled to last six months. At a meeting in Mattapan earlier this month Police Commissioner William Evans attributed the delayed starting date to multiple factors, including strong union concerns about the rollout of the program. “Do I wish we got it out more quickly? Absolutely,” he said.

Earlier this month, representatives from all sides of the issue came to discuss the program at a community meeting in Mattapan where Boston Police Camera Action Team co-founder Segun Idowu posed questions about the policy and implementation of the program, many of which were left unanswered. “There is no good sense in having a near perfect policy if there is no mechanism in place to discipline those it is meant to regulate. We ought not wait before doing something,” Idowu stressed.

Matthew Segal, legal director for the Massachusetts branch of the ACLU, said that body cameras, “will protect both sides of the badge.”

City Councillor At-Large Annissa Essaibi-George asked Evans how many officers had volunteered at that point. Evans did not have an answer for her at that time. The original intent was to have officers volunteer to participate in the six-month initiative In turn, they would be given a $500 stipend. In the end, not a single officer had volunteered.

The department will be testing out two different camera vendors and storage platforms as part of the program. Anthony Braga, director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, will be conducting data analysis following the six-month rollout.