40 years in, Transway Fleet Solutions only getting started! 

23/01/2025

It’s a landmark year for Transway Fleet Solutions, as this industry-leading one-stop shop for all trailer maintenance, sales, repairs and testing needs celebrates its 40th anniversary. However, rather than reflecting on past glories – and there are many of those! – TFS is a progressive company with its sights firmly fixed on the present and future. 

A true business partner of hauliers nationwide, Transway Fleet Solutions is an exceptional family-run company that has evolved in line with customer needs and expectations over the past four decades and counting to today deliver a vast and ever-expanding range of services to the transport industry. 

Fully focused on keeping customers on the road, Transway Fleet Solutions have spent forty years building an outstanding product and service range that is simply second to none. From servicing, contract maintenance, repairs, CVR testing, curtain manufacturing, spare parts and trailer sales, they really are the one-stop-shop for all your maintenance needs. 

Now headquartered in Clondalkin, Transway Fleet Solutions was established in Ballyfermot as a trailer repair company by managing director Brian Balfe in 1984.  

Brian has built a tightly knit management team over the past 10 years and has brought in some new additions in the past two years. The team now reflects the company’s ambition to constantly evolve and move with the times in order to guarantee hauliers the best possible service. 

“Brian started the business in 1984 and it has evolved a lot from what it began as,” Brian’s son Evan confirms. “While he’s very proud to have reached this landmark anniversary, with that, we are very enthusiastically looking forward to the next 40 years, not least because we have some fresh ideas from exciting new talent in the company.” 

Definitely a case of looking forward, rather than back, then? “That’s it. Of course, we’re very proud of what we’ve already achieved but it’s now about consolidating our service offering and the mission statement we are zoning in on is that we want to be ‘the trusted partner to transport companies in Ireland’. That comes from us being very good at what we do.” 

Over the years, the range of service offerings has expanded organically to deliver a complete trailer maintenance, repair and testing package covering five key areas: trailer maintenance and repairs; specialist refrigerated body repairs; new trailer sales; VTN test centre; and spare parts (under the Transway Spares banner). 

“We started in a three-bay workshop in ’84 and we now have nine bays and two test lanes,” Evan reveals. “We have always made sure we are giving the best possible service to our customers and we have expanded our service offering to provide full contract maintenance support. We cover all trailer makes and types: we’re specialists in refrigerated trailers but there’s no aspect of an articulated trailer that we can’t tend to.” 

The beauty of having Transway Fleet Solutions as a partner is that operators can focus their full attention on the actual haulage side of their business safe in the knowledge that their fleets are firing on all cylinders at a fixed cost. “With large fleets comes large costs and our service offering addresses this by ensuring that our customers’ vehicles have no unnecessary downtime, stay on the road and are fully compliant.” 

“We aim to create real value for our customers by giving them a complete and competitive service. We already are the partner to a lot of transport companies and there are many others who would benefit from the services we offer. ‘Partner’ is a very important word to us, because we genuinely work together with our customers to achieve common goals and we strive to have good relationships and enjoyable interactions with all our customers.” 

Although headquartered in the capital, Transway Fleet Solutions has a nationwide footprint. “We have clients from as far away as Tipperary, Limerick, Galway, etc. and our spare parts business covers the whole country,” Evan comments. “We’re very strategically located close to the M50, M7, M4 and Dublin Port, which are the main thoroughfares of most of our customers.” 

At the heart of the consistent success, evolution and growth of Transway Fleet Solutions is an excellent team. “We have staff members who’ve been with us long term, some of them for more than 20 years. They are all very experienced, knowledgeable and skilled people, be that in the office or the workshop. These people are our most prized assets because you can’t achieve anything without having a good team around you. 

“We want it to be a great place to work and it’s a mark of the company that so many of our people have been with us for so long. Staff retention is key. We feel that if we foster a happy working environment that it will result in excellent work and this will be passed on to our customers. 

“The customer is at the centre of everything we do and that has always been the case. When a fleet manager, procurement manager or driver comes in here, we want them to have a great experience and to see that we are excellent at what we do, that we have the right people on board using the best equipment, as well as the best trailers to sell from major brands. We have strong agencies on board [Schmitz, Krone, Legras, Benalu, SOR and Wielton]. When we sell a trailer, we can give a complete service to support that trailer throughout its life.” 

While it’s a year of celebration for Transway Fleet Solutions, one gets the distinct impression that it’s a case of ‘a lot done but much more to do’! “Expansion is definitely a goal and further growth is certainly on the horizon,” Evan concludes. “We feel we still have a lot more to offer the industry. We know we do what we do well, and we are going to offer that to more companies going forward. We’re not looking back; to be honest, we’re thinking about the next 40 years!” 

Transway Fleet Solutions, 

Unit 4, 

Besser Drive, 

Clondalkin Industrial Estate, 

Dublin 22. 

Tel: 01 4573420 

Email: [email protected] 

Web: transway.ie 

First published in Irish Trucker magazine November/December 2024, Vol 27-6