The switch on did not happen on September 22nd, 2024 - and the previous date in March was also missed.
Also, once again you seemed have forgotten that COVID happened 2020-2022. Are you also trying to seriously suggest that TfL pausing all non-essential services and projects during a pandemic was a nefarious act to avoid rolling out project Oval, and by extension avoid having to support railcards on contactless transactions?
You honestly don’t seem to have any real grasp of how long project like Oval actually take to implement. A large transport project overrunning deadlines by a few years is hardly unusual. It’s certainly no evidence of some grand conspiracy to avoid supporting railcards (which again, TfL are under no obligation to support anyway).
I'm suggesting it likely would've been delayed anyway, based on how the project was going prior to the cyber attack, and the cyber attack is the latest convenient reason for it not being rolled out according to the (already behind) schedule.
It's not just Oval, it very much appears from an external perspective that most projects that TfL touch don't get done on time or completed to the promised standard. There are countless examples, the 4G/5G coverage rollout on the underground is yet another: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lu-elizabeth-line-4g-up...
It's tiresome to see repeatedly happening.
> You honestly don’t seem to have any real grasp of how long project like Oval actually take to implement
I don't think the timeframes in the original tender were that unrealistic, and to be clear, the tender was published well after the lifting of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in the UK. If TfL didn't think those timescales were realistic, it shouldn't have bid for the contract.
What I have heard are - if true - some truly ridiculous stories (manual fares data entry, instead of automated ingest of the NR fares data, which already has all of the PAYG fares) about how this is being implemented, which would explain a lot about some of the reasons behind the delays if correct. It's certainly not the fault of the TOCs involved, that's for sure.