MxV Rail has performed a high-level review to guide the development of ballast condition metrics for selecting the type of ballast maintenance. This review has two related objectives. First, many recently developed track-based inspection technologies, such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) or machine vision, provide previously unavailable ballast metrics at-scale. This Technology Digest provides comments on the ability of these new metrics to predict track geometry degradation and aid ballast maintenance planning. Second, ballast maintenance occurs in a wide range of situations, and this publication provides high-level considerations and framework for maintenance planning. Based on the wide range of considerations and priorities revealed by the review, MxV Rail has opted to provide general guidance focused on differentiating between appropriate ballast maintenance selection and a ballast metric that predicts track performance (e.g., track geometry degradation). This work was supported by the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Strategic Research Initiative (SRI)…