Exclusive | NYC tourist bus company feud heats up with wild new claims including abandoning vehicle in middle of Times Square

The battle between feuding double-decker tour bus companies is heating up — with new claims that drivers at one of the companies are treated so poorly, that they abandon the gigantic vehicles in the middle of Times Square.That’s according to TopView — sued last month for allegedly trying to honk out a smaller competitor — which filed a blistering counterclaim Monday calling the claims against it “false” and an effort by the other tour bus company “to distract from their own record of misconduct.”Aurora Tourism Services “have been violating regulations requirements so as to avoid fair competition, while providing an inferior service to consumers and negatively impacting the hop on hop off bus industry reputation,” TopView claims.An Aurora driver was even “observed publicly complaining about unpaid wages and abandoning [the company’s] bus in the middle of Times Square in protest,” according to the Manhattan Supreme Court filing.Aurora — also known as Iconic Tours — constantly runs afoul of the law by not registering their buses with proper agencies, operating vehicles without permits or license plates and storing their buses overnight on public streets, Top View’s filing claims.The company also accuses Aurora of using unlicensed ticket sellers to dupe tourists, making unauthorized bus stops and picking fights with traffic agents, according to the court documents.Claims TopView previously made in federal court that Aurora workers deliberately don similar uniforms as theirs and trick customers into believing they are the much larger operator are also included in the new filing.But since Aurora filed its own salacious suit against TopView in October — accusing the competitor of beating up its workers and harassing its customers with weed smoke and megaphones — a slew of new, documented claims of illegality are now in the public record.TopView, which operates a fleet of over 40 buses, claims to have documented nearly 100 instances where...