A productivity idea

My street, Hobson Street, has had crews working on it for the last few weeks. This is a good thing, as they are laying duct for fibre.

Generally this means that part of the road is one way for a couple of hundred metres. This means that two people are employed to hold up a go and stop sign to allow traffic to flow.

Everyday as I see this, it occurs to me there must be more efficient ways to do this, than have two people doing nothing but holding up a go and stop sign. Three ideas:

• Have a set of connected electronic stop and go signs which one person can control with a remote. That halves the operational cost, for what I presume is a modest capital cost.
• Have a set of connected electronic stop and go signs and just have them on a timer where they flip say every 45 seconds (with a 15 second break where both are red to allow traffic to clear inbetween). This means you need no people operating then. Would not work in all situations but definitely would for such a small road.
• Just make Hobson Street one way temporarily. No electronic signs or people needed. Not a major hassle as all you have to do is travel down Murphy Street 300 metres and then come up Hobson.

Any other ideas for productivity gains? Any flaws in my ideas?