The mad dash for a Labor Day weekend campsite has begun, as families race to state parks, gambling that all their planning, packing and driving will not be undone by the first-come, first-served scramble.

By this time next year, however, holiday camping trips in Rhode Island will have lost their nail-biting suspense.

The state Department of Environmental Management plans to announce today that it has hired a company to operate a reservations system for public campgrounds for the first time in state history.

Starting in November, campers will be able to reserve campsites as long as a year before a visit.

“We are excited about this,” Steven T. Wright, acting chief of the DEM’s Division of Parks and Recreation, said yesterday. “It’s a long time coming.”

More than 1,000 campsites in five parks — Burlingame State Campground in Charlestown, Fishermen’s campground in Narragansett, East Beach in Charlestown, Charlestown Breachway in Charlestown and the George Washington Campground in Glocester — will be included in the program.

It will be operated by ReserveAmerica Holdings Inc., a 23-year-old company that says it manages reservations for 3,000 parks nationwide and handles 3.5 million reservations annually.

The state is not increasing the cost of renting a campground — $14 a night for state residents and $20 for non-residents — but the overall cost of a night under the stars will still grow substantially.

ReserveAmerica, a New York-based subsidiary of Ticketmaster, plans to charge campers $9 to make a reservation online and $10 by telephone. A change in a reservation will cost an additional $10, Wright said.

Nearly 70,000 groups of campers rent state sites annually in Rhode Island, generating $1.4 million in annual revenue.

Between April 15 and Labor Day, ReserveAmerica will staff a call center in Rhode Island that will operate from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.

During the rest of the year, campers can make reservations by phone from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. The Web site, linked from www.riparks.com, will be accessible 24 hours per day.

Campers will still be able to reserve a campsite in person. But arriving before dawn, or skipping work to claim a site midweek,will not give an advantage over campers who booked months in advance.

For decades, campers have honed strategies to secure desired campsites. Some queue for more than 12 hours to win a spot for their RV or motor home, while others convince relatives or friends to leave a site a day early so they can scoop it up.

Another popular technique involves a special trip to a campground early in the week to deposit a trailer in the woods, sometimes days before campers plan to occupy the site.

“People used to our old system might not like the change,” Wright said. “But in the long run it allows people to be able to plan.”

Although the DEM plans its official announcement for today, it began alerting campers to the change yesterday, posting signs at state parks advertising the service.

ReserveAmerica has also provided 20,000 one-page brochures that state officials will hand out this summer.

The state requested bids for the service in February, asking for proposals by May.

Three companies responded, including US eDIRECT Inc. and InfoSpherix. A state committee interviewed representatives from ReserveAmerica and InfoSpherix, and it recommend ReserveAmerica to the DEM director, W. Michael Sullivan.

ReserveAmerica calls itself the largest provider of campsite reservations in the country. Its e-mail newsletter goes out to 1.5 million campers, and in its pitch to Rhode Island, the company said its marketing services could increase occupancy.

More than 31 states use some version of a campground reservation system. In New England, ReserveAmerica already has contracts with Connecticut and Massachusetts.

But before it sets up in Rhode Island, Wright said, the DEM must improve the company’s published campsite catalogue.

Starting today, three staff members will begin touring every campsite, noting the distance to restrooms, proximity to the water, access to utilities and level of shade.

Those details, and others, will be included on the ReserveAmerica Web site and be available to the company’s reservation agents at call centers in Rhode Island and New York.

“In this day and age, things have to be planned,” Larry Mouradjian, associate director for natural resources management at the DEM, said earlier this summer. “We’ve received a lot of pleas to accept reservations.”

bgedan@projo.com