Students undertaking a final year elective subject in transportation planning at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, worked on a practical project for which there was an interested outside 'client'. From the students' perspective, this was essentially a 'simulated' consulting project which focused on transport planning issues faced by an inner metropolitan municipality in Melbourne. The overall experience, from everybody's perspective, proved to be so positive that the model for the project will be used in the course in future years. This paper has been written to inform engineering educators of how the project was implemented and to highlight some of the educational issues which this type of experience raised. Of particular interest to educators are issues associated with the functioning of some of the student groups and the opportunities provided by projects of this nature to establish strong links with industry.