The plateau transitions of the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) are accompanied by dissipative bulk current flow, which causes the corresponding peaks in the longitudinal magneto-resistance R_xx. On the basis of a non-equilibrium network model for magneto-transport, we propose an experimental setup for suppressing the dissipation in the plateau transition regime. This is achieved by an appropriate biasing of a narrow stripe shaped gate electrode, which is aligned to the longitudinal direction of the sample and needs to cover only a vanishing small part (few percent) of the bulk region. Our calculations demonstrate, that the reduction of the dissipation is accompanied by a drastic narrowing of the plateau transitions. Besides the practical aspect in context with metrology, such an investigation provides additional insight into the role of quantum phase transitions and phase coherence for the appearance of the QHE.